THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 


THE 

RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

AN  HISTORICAL  STUDY 


BY 

HENRY   PRESERVED   SMITH 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  February,  1914 


So 

THE   MEMORY   OF 

CHARLES  AUGUSTUS  BRIGGS,  D.D.,  D.LITT. 

WARM-HEARTED    FRIEND 

ACCOMPLISHED    SCHOLAR 
DEVOTED   DISCIPLE    OF   THE   MASTER 
VALIANT    DEFENDER    OF    THE    FAITH 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the 
title  and  is  set  forth  more  at  large  in  the  opening  chapter. 
It  is  an  endeavour  to  give  an  intelligible  account  of  the 
rise  and  progress  of  Israel's  religion  from  its  beginnings  in 
the  nomadic  period  down  to  the  tragic  event  which  put  an 
end  to  the  Jewish  state.  The  reader  who  is  even  super- 
ficially acquainted  with  the  progress  of  biblical  study  during 
the  last  forty  years  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  the 
book  proceeds  upon  the  supposition  that  the  results  of  the 
so-called  higher  criticism  are  fairly  certain.  All  that  the 
book  claims  for  itself  is  that  it  represents  our  present  knowl- 
edge; what  the  future  has  in  store  for  us  we  cannot  fore- 
cast. I  have  avoided  controversy  and  have  endeavoured 
to  state  my  opinion  frankly  and  in  positive  terms.  I  have 
not  thought  it  necessary  to  make  frequent  reference  to  the 
literature  of  the  subject.  Old  Testament  scholars  will  dis- 
cover where  I  am  indebted  to  my  predecessors.  The  reader 
who  is  not  a  specialist  may  safely  assume  that  I  have  not 
taken  any  position  without  examining  the  arguments  for 
and  against. 

The  frequent  references  to  the  biblical  writers  will  be 
their  own  justification.  And  since  (according  to  my  obser- 
vation) few  readers  have  the  patience  to  look  up  chapter 
and  verse  in  their  Bibles,  I  have  often  introduced  the  words 
of  the  authors  into  my  text.  In  the  few  cases  in  which  the 
notation  of  chapter  and  verse  in  the  English  is  not  the 
same  as  in  the  Hebrew,  I  have  followed  the  latter.  Where 
my  translation  differs  from  that  of  the  current  version  it 
will,  I  think,  command  the  approval  of  good  authorities. 

vii 


Vlll  PREFACE 

In  preparing  this  book  I  thought  with  pleasure  of  dedi- 
cating it  to  my  friend  Dr.  Briggs,  to  whom  biblical  and 
theological  scholarship  owes  so  much.  Before  the  copy 
could  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  printer  he  was  called 
from  the  scene  of  his  earthly  labours.  There  remains  to 
me  only  the  melancholy  pleasure  of  consecrating  it  to  his 
memory,  a  belated  testimony  of  my  affection,  but  none 
the  less  an  evidence  of  the  debt  of  gratitude  I  owe  him.  I 
count  him  among  them  that  are  wise,  who  shine  as  the  bright- 
ness of  the  firmament. 

NEW  YORK, 
December  1,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
CHAPTER 

I.    AIM  AND  METHOD     .  .... 

II.    NOMADIC  RELIGION  . 
III.    MOSES  AND  His  WORK      . 
IV.    THE  TRANSITION 
V.    RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE 

VI.    THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS    .  .117 

VII.    AMOS  AND  HOSEA      . 

VIII.    ISAIAH     ...  •     147 

IX.    JEREMIAH 
X.    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  .  •     179 

XI.  EZEKIEL  . 

XII.  LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT     . 

XIII.  THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  .  •    227 

XIV.  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

XV.    SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  .    250 

XVI.    THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION 

XVII.    LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS  ....    276 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAQE 

XVIII.    APOCALYPTIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  .    293 
XIX.    THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE         .         .         .        .315 

XX.    THE  FINAL  STAGE 332 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES 355 

INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS  .  366 


THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 


THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

CHAPTER  I 
AIM   AND  METHOD 

OUR  purpose  is  to  trace  the  history  of  Israel's  religion 
from  the  earliest  discoverable  stages  down  to  the  Christian 
era.  The  subject  has  been  frequently  treated  in  recent 
years  under  the  name  of  "Biblical  Theology  of  the  Old 
Testament."  The  adjective  "Biblical"  in  this  title  is  in- 
tended to  differentiate  this  science  from  dogmatic  or 
systematic  theology.  Dogmatic  theology,  which  aims  to 
present  the  philosophy  held  in  any  particular  religious  com- 
munion, uses  the  contents  of  the  Bible  to  confirm  or  estab- 
lish the  doctrines  of  the  Church  as  defined  in  the  creeds. 
Its  purpose  may  be  said  to  be  the  discovery  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Bible  for  us  and  in  our  philosophical  system. 
With  the  rise  of  modern  historical  science  men  began  to 
realise  that  what  the  biblical  writers  thought  of  God  and 
divine  things  might  not  always  be  normative  for  us.  The 
student  of  history  does  not  understand  a  thing  unless  he 
can  trace  the  process  of  growth  by  which  it  has  come  to 
be  what  it  is.  From  this  point  of  view  it  is  no  longer  enough 
for  us  to  set  forth  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Bible  in  some 
philosophical  arrangement.  The  principle  of  arrangement 
must  be  organic,  according  to  the  stages  of  growth  discov- 
erable in  the  documents  upon  which  our  knowledge  depends. 
Biblical  theology,  therefore,  is  correctly  defined  as  the  sci- 
ence which  sets  forth  "the  theology  of  the  Bible  in  its  his- 
torical formation."  l  The  same  thing  is  meant  by  Oehler 

1  Briggs,  General  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Holy  Scripture,  p.  569. 
Dr.  Briggs  adds  the  phrase  "within  the  canonical  books."  Whether  this 
conception  of  the  canon  belongs  here  we  may  be  able  to  determine  later. 

3 


RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

when  he  speaks  of  the  "historico-genetic  presentation  of 
the  religion  contained  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment." l  The  phrase  historico-genetic  means  simply  that  we 
are  to  trace  the  genesis  and  growth  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion.  Since  this  is  a  purely  historical  inquiry,  it  seems 
best  to  state  it  in  the  title,  and  speak  of  the  history  of  Is- 
rael's religion. 

The  source  of  our  knowledge  is,  of  course,  the  literature  } 
of  the  Hebrews.  For  dogmatic  theology  the  same  is  true.  ' 
For  dogmatic  theology  the  definition  of  the  canon  is  impor- 
tant; for  the  historical  inquiry  this  is  not  so.  The  canon 
is  the  group  of  books  accepted  in  the  Church  as  authorita- 
tive. Historical  science  knows  no  authoritative  documents; 
it  asks  only  whether  the  documents  with  which  it  deals 
contain  material  bearing  on  a  certain  historic  development, 
in  this  case  bearing  on  the  religion  of  Israel.  This  consid- 
eration shows  that  the  attempt  to  limit  biblical  theology 
to  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  mistake. 
No  clear  line  of  demarcation  can  be  drawn  between  the 
religion  of  the  canonical  books  and  the  religion  of  those 
excluded  from  the  canon.  The  religion  of  Israel  did  not 
stop  growing  when  the  latest  of  the  Hebrew  books  took 
shape.  In  fact,  as  we  now  know,  some  of  the  so-called 
apocrypha  and  pseudepigrapha  are  earlier  in  date  than  some 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  advantage  of  defining  our  subject  as  the  history  of  \ 
religion  instead  of  a  theology  is  seen  when  we  reflect  that 
while  the  documents  with  which  we  have  to  deal  are  full  of 
religion,  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  can  be  said  to  contain 
a  theology.  The  endeavour  to  make  them  teach  a  theology 
is  instructive  with  reference  to  this  point.  The  early  Church 
was  challenged  as  to  its  theology,  that  is  to  say,  as  to  its 
beliefs  concerning  God  and  the  world,  sin  and  salvation, 
on  two  sides.  The  Jews  denied  that  the  beliefs  of  the 
Christians  were  authenticated  by  the  Scriptures;  the  gen- 
tiles called  upon  them  to  justify  their  rejection  of  the  an- 
I0ld  Testament  Theology,  §2. 


AIM  AND  METHOD  5 

cestral  gods.  Against  both  antagonists  Christian  thinkers 
appealed  to  their  sacred  book.  But  the  stress  to  which 
they  were  driven  is  made  clear  by  their  method  of  inter- 
pretation. It  was  a  boon  to  them  that  the  allegorical  ex- 
position had  been  so  thoroughly  adopted  by  Philo.  Ori- 
gen,  the  greatest  scholar  of  the  Church,  appropriated  this 
method  and  frankly  confessed  that  many  passages  of  the 
Old  Testament,  taken  literally,  did  not  teach  any  important 
theological  truth.  The  literal  sense,  he  held,  is  only  the 
body  of  Scripture;  we  must  search  for  the  soul,  which  is 
the  deeper  mystical  meaning. 

It  must  be  evident  that  this  theory  and  the  later  asser- 
tion of  a  threefold,  fourfold,  or  even  sevenfold  sense  of 
Scripture  must  block  the  way  to  a  really  historical  under- 
standing both  of  the  documents  themselves  and  of  the  relig- 
ion which  underlies  them.  Protestantism,  indeed,  rejected 
the  allegorical  interpretation  and  laid  stress  on  the  literal 
interpretation.  Luther,  although  his  religious  experience 
gave  him  a  better  understanding  of  the  real  religious  ap- 
peal made  by  the  biblical  writers  than  was  found  among  the 
theologians  who  preceded  him,  was  not  able  to  free  himself 
from  the  scholastic  philosophy  in  which  he  had  been  brought 
up,  and  this  is  more  distinctly  true  of  Melanchthon  and 
Calvin.  In  one  sense  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  was 
less  open  to  discussion  in  the  Protestant  Churches  than  in 
the  Church  of  Rome.  In  the  latter  the  defects  of  Scripture 
could  be  made  good  by  tradition,  and  the  allegorical  method 
could  find  a  suitable  sense  almost  anywhere.  But  the  Prot- 
estants had  made  their  whole  system  depend  on  the  Bible, 
and  they  had  rejected  the  allegories.  They  must  find  all 
that  they  needed  in  the  text  literally  interpreted.  What 
actually  happened  was  that  a  new  tradition  took  the  place 
of  the  old.  What  could  be  used  to  strengthen  the  received 
doctrinal  system  was  taken  in  the  form  of  proof-texts,  and 
the  rest  was  left  out  of  view.  The  theory  of  a  fourfold  sense 
now  gave  way  to  the  doctrine  of  the  analogy  of  faith,  ac- 
cording to  which  all  Scripture,  since  it  proceeded  from  God 


6  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

as  author,  must  be  harmonious.  And  in  place  of  the  alle- 
gorical interpretation  came  a  set  of  types  according  to  which 
everything  in  the  Old  Testament  was  made  to  foreshadow 
Christ. 

The  endeavour  to  emphasise  the  doctrinal  parts  of  Scrip- 
ture had  one  curious  result.  It  became  the  fashion  for 
teachers  of  theology  to  collect  proof-texts  out  of  the  whole 
Bible  and  publish  them  with  comments  for  the  use  of  stu- 
dents. Sebastian  Schmidt,  of  Strassburg,  one  of  the  ablest 
scholars  of  the  seventeenth  century,  gave  a  course  of  lec- 
tures on  the  dicta  prdbantia,  and  afterward  published  them 
under  the  title  Collegium  Biblicum.  The  example  was  fol- 
lowed by  others,  and  may  have  given  rise  to  the  idea  that 
there  was,  after  all,  a  difference  between  dogmatic  and  biblical 
theology.  The  rise  of  rationalism,  however,  was  probably 
more  potent  in  turning  thought  to  the  real  nature  of  the 
biblical  books.  The  clear  formulation  of  the  distinction 
between  biblical  and  dogmatic  theology  seems  to  be  due 
to  Gabler,  whose  essay  on  this  subject  was  published  in 
1787.1  Gabler  rightly  made  biblical  theology  an  historic 
rather  than  a  philosophical  study.  A  considerable  part  of 
the  theological  work  of  the  nineteenth  century,  especially 
in  Germany,  was  devoted  to  the  development  of  this  thought; 
namely,  that  biblical  theology  belongs  among  the  historical 
sciences. 

The  apprehension  of  the  literature  of  the  Hebrews  as  an 
historic  source  is  what  distinguishes  our  age  from  all  that 
have  preceded  it.  To  the  Jews  the  Bible  was  primarily 
a  code  of  laws.  The  earnestness  with  which  they  have  ap- 
plied this  code  to  their  daily  conduct  is  writ  large  on  their 
whole  later  history.  This  point  of  view  was  to  a  certain 
extent  overcome  by  the  early  Church  under  the  leadership 
of  the  Apostle  Paul.  The  Church,  however,  looked  upon 
the  documents  of  the  Old  Testament  as  so  many  predictions 

1  De  justo  discrimine  theologies  biblicae  et  dogmatics,  regundisque  recte 
utriusque  finibus.  I  have  not  seen  this  essay,  but  it  is  cited  by  most 
of  the  writers  on  this  subject. 


AIM  AND  METHOD  7 

of  the  salvation  which  was  brought  by  Jesus  Christ.  This 
also  was  a  one-sided  view.  Later,  when  stress  was  laid 
upon  a  correct  philosophy  of  the  universe,  the  Bible  became 
the  divinely  inspired  treatise  on  doctrine.  The  unnatural 
interpretations  forced  on  the  text  by  both  these  theories 
are  well  known.  It  is  now  clear  that  both  theories  did  vio- 
lence to  the  real  nature  of  the  Bible.  What  we  now  empha- 
sise in  describing  this  book  is  its  character  as  religious  lit- 
erature; the  Bible  is  the  expression  of  the  religious  life  of  « 
the  Hebrew  people.  It  is,  therefore,  a  source  of  religious 
edification  to  the  reader.  This,  to  be  sure,  has  always 
been  known  to  devout  souls.  It  was  the  merit  of  Pietism 
that  it  called  men's  attention  afresh  to  this  truth. 

But  the  view  of  Pietism  may  easily  lead  to  extravagancies. 
If  these  are  to  be  guarded  against  they  must  be  accompanied 
by  an  historical  apprehension.  As  the  Bible  is  something 
more  than  a  collection  of  proof-texts  for  the  dogmatician, 
so  it  is  more  than  a  series  of  comforting  assurances  for  the 
believer.  When  by  a  correct  exegesis  we  have  discovered 
the  meaning  of  the  sentences  which  make  up  the  book,  we 
are  still  far  from  understanding  the  book.  These  sentences  i 
are  somehow  related  to  each  other.  They  have  an  organic  1 
unity,  or  rather  they  express  a  single  continuous  life.  We 
must  therefore  have  some  principle  by  which  we  can  bring 
the  isolated  fragments  into  unity.  This  means  that  we 
must  seek  to  discover  the  organic  evolution  of  which  they 
are  the  expression. 

It  follows  logically  that  our  science  demands  as  a  pre- 
requisite what  is  known  as  the  higher  criticism.     Criticism  J 
is  simply  examination  of  documents  to  determine  their  his-  « 
torical  value.     All  our  knowledge  of  antiquity  comes  to  us 
in  fragments.     We  have  a  bit  of  flint  as  evidence  of  what 
the  oldest  man  was  doing;   we  have  a  half-defaced  inscrip- 
tion from  which  to  discover  the  ideas  which  were  current 
three  thousand  years  ago;   we  have  a  pile  of  broken  clay 
tablets  from  which  to  piece  together  the  cosmology  of  the 
dwellers  in  the  Euphrates  Valley  somewhere  near  the  dawn 


8  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

of  history.  Even  the  literature  which  has  come  down  to  . 
us  is  only  a  fragment,  and  the  Bible  itself  is  a  collection  / 
of  such  fragments.  To  understand  them  we  must  first  get 
an  idea  of  ancient  literary  methods.  This  means  that  we 
must  rid  ourself  of  the  idea  that  authorship  implies  literary 
property.  In  our  own  time  it  is  unwarrantable  to  take  sec- 
tions of  a  book  and  intersperse  them  with  paragraphs  from 
ano  her  source  and  thus  make  another  book.  But  in  an- 
cient times  there  was  no  scruple  in  doing  just  this.  When 
a  man  of  Israel  had  in  his  possession  a  book  that  seemed 
to  him  defective  in  its  point  of  view,  he  saw  no  reason  why 
he  should  not  correct  it  by  insertion  of  what  he  thought 
more  adequate.  This  process  was  almost  inevitable  in  the 
case  of  a  sacred  book,  for  religious  ideas  change,  and  what 
is  edifying  to  one  generation  may  not  be  so  to  another.  We 
have  seen  how  the  allegorical  interpretation  was  made  to 
give  the  old  Bible  new  meanings.  Before  the  text  had  be- 
come fixed  the  same  end  was  attained  by  interpolation  and 
redactional  changes.  If  we  are  rightly  to  appreciate  the 
historical  process  which  has  embodied  itself  in  these  docu- 
ments we  must  first  apply  the  critical  process  and  separate 
earlier  elements  from  those  which  are  later. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  what,  for  want  of 
a  better  name,  we  call  interpolations  are  of  less  value  to  us 
than  the  older  strata  with  which  they  are  interspersed. 
These  later  additions  reveal  most  clearly,  and  often  most 
touchingly,  the  state  of  mind  of  religious  men  who  felt  the 
defects  of  the  documents  which  had  come  down  from  an- 
tiquity. All  that  we  need  to  guard  against  is  the  tempta- 
tion to  take  the  later  portions  as  evidence  of  what  went  on 
at  an  earlier  time.  This  temptation  naturally  beset  the 
first  generation  of  critics,  and  it  took  a  long  time  to  estab- 
lish the  real  historical  order  of  the  documents.  The  diffi- 
culty was  caused  by  the  strength  of  the  tradition  embodied 
in  the  Hebrew  documents  themselves.  This  tradition  made 
the  Law  of  Moses  the  starting-point  of  Israel's  history.  At 
the  present  day  it  is  generally  conceded  that  this  is  a  mis- 


AIM  AND  METHOD 

take.  With  such  a  presupposition  the  history  of  Israel  is 
unintelligible,  whereas  on  the  modern  theory  we  get  a  well- 
ordered  development  culminating  in  the  priestly  legislation 
instead  of  starting  from  it. 

In  saying  that  our  method  must  be  critical  we  mean  that 
we  assume  the  results  of  critical  study  as  to  the  order  of 
the  documents.  This  implies,  of  course,  that  we  base  our 
sketch  of  the  religion  of  Israel  on  the  critical  reconstruction 
of  Israel's  history.  But,  since  this  reconstruction  is  not  yet 
universally  accepted,  it  is  necessary  at  this  point  to  state 
in  brief  what  it  holds  to  be  the  actual  process  of  Israel's 
development.  The  comparative  study  of  religions  shows 
with  increasing  clearness  that  the  religion  of  a  people  bears 
an  intimate  relation  to  that  people's  political  and  social 
conditions.  What  these  conditions  were  in  Israel  must  be 
determined  by  the  historian.  As  thus  determined,  Israel's 
development  may  be  sketched  as  follows: 

About  thirteen  hundred  years  before  Christ  a  group  of 
nomad  clans  was  making  its  way  into  the  cultivated  country 
of  Canaan,  the  district  which  lies  between  the  Jordan  and 
the  Mediterranean.  For  some  three  hundred  years  the 
struggle  went  on  between  the  older  inhabitants  and  the 
newcomers.  The  result  was  the  amalgamation  of  the  two 
elements,  with  the  desert  blood  predominant.  David  suc- 
ceeded in  uniting  the  heterogeneous  sections  into  one  peo- 
ple, though  the  unity  was  never  very  perfect,  and  the  single 
kingdom  was  broken  into  two  after  less  than  a  hundred 
years.  The  larger  fraction  maintained  a  semblance  of  in- 
dependence for  about  two  hundred  years,  succumbing  at 
last  to  Assyria  in  722.  Judah,  the  smaller  fraction,  enjoyed 
the  name  of  a  kingdom  for  something  over  a  hundred  years 
longer.  But  it,  too,  fell  before  a  greater  power,  becoming 
an  insignificant  province  of  the  Babylonian  Empire.  Never 
again  politically  independent,  the  Jews  yet  learned  to  live 
among  the  gentiles  without  mixing  with  them,  keeping  their 
separate  social  and  religious  customs. 

This  bare  outline  shows  that  we  may  distinguish  four 


10  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

stages  in  the  history  of  this  people,  and  the  presumption  is 
that  the  religion  will  show  four  stages  corresponding  to 
these.  First  of  all,  the  clans  were  nomads  living  on  the 
milk  of  their  flocks  and  the  plunder  taken  from  their  neigh- 
bours. Their  religious  ideas  must  have  been  similar  to 
what  we  find  among  the  Arabs  of  the  same  region  at  the 
present  day.  Then  came  the  stage  of  amalgamation  with 
the  Canaanites  and  the  adoption  of  the  agricultural  life. 
The  adoption  of  Canaanitish  religion  would  naturally  follow, 
and  we  have  abundant  evidence  that  it  actually  did  follow. 
With  the  reign  of  Solomon  the  arts  of  life  made  an  advance; 
commercial  enterprises  were  undertaken;  great  buildings 
were  erected;  class  divisions  became  more  marked.  The 
reaction  did  not  come  at  once,  but  when,  in  the  time  of  Ahab, 
foreign  customs  seemed  about  to  prevail,  a  vigorous  protest 
was  made  under  the  lead  of  Elijah.  The  succession  of 
prophets  thus  introduced  marks  a  new  era  for  the  religion 
of  Israel.  Their  political  revolution,  which  set  Jehu  on  the 
throne,  did  not  stop  the  march  of  events,  but  their  influ- 
ence lasted  long  after  the  fall  of  Samaria,  which  they  so 
plainly  foresaw.  Their  message  was  repeated  with  em- 
phasis by  Isaiah  but  was  disregarded  in  the  half-century 
that  followed  his  death.  The  attempt  of  the  prophetic 
party  to  effect  a  thorough  reformation  of  religion  under 
Josiah  was  of  short  duration,  but,  as  was  true  in  the  case  of 
the  earlier  prophets,  the  message  had  greater  vitality  than 
the  men  who  formulated  it.  The  remnant  which  survived 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  felt  the  full  force  of  the  denunciations 
which  the  prophets  had  put  on  record,  and  their  attempt  to 
regulate  their  lives  by  the  traditions  which  came  from  the 
fathers  made  the  final  period  (that  of  legalism)  the  most 
strongly  marked  of  all  the  stages  of  Israel's  religion. 

What  is  now  clear  to  us  is  that  in  our  history  of  the  re- 
ligion we  must  begin  with  the  nomadic  stage  and  end  with 
the  highly  developed  legalism  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
religious  community  which  we  know  as  the  Jews.  For  the 
nomadic  stage  we  have  to  depend  on  indirect  evidence,  for 


AIM  AND  METHOD  11 

the  nomad  does  not  preserve  records  of  his  experiences. 
In  the  agricultural  stage  written  documents  begin  to  ap- 
pear. But  it  is  only  under  the  monarchy  that  literature 
in  any  real  sense  of  the  word  takes  form.  And  religiously 
the  most  important  literary  monuments  of  this  period  are 
the  remains  of  the  written  prophets.  Of  course  here,  as 
in  other  departments  of  human  history,  no  clear  and  sharp 
lines  of  division  can  be  drawn.  This  is  most  distinctly  seen 
in  the  case  of  Deuteronomy.  The  writers  of  this  book  sup- 
posed themselves  to  be  putting  the  ideas  of  the  prophets 
into  definite  form;  yet  they  were,  in  fact,  introducing  a  new 
period — that  of  legalism. 

This  instance  is  important  as  showing  that  the  political 
development  and  the  religious  history  do  not  exactly  coin- 
cide. Politically,  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  586  was  the  most 
important  event  in  the  history  of  Israel;  religiously,  the 
publication  of  Deuteronomy,  nearly  forty  years  earlier,  was 
epoch-making.  It  may  be  well  to  note,  however,  that  the 
legalism  introduced  by  Deuteronomy  would  not  have  be- 
come effective  had  not  Jerusalem  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  Nebuchadrezzar.  What  stands  out  clearly  is  that  our 
divisions  of  Israel's  religion  will  be  the  following: 

1.  Nomadic  religion. 

2.  Agricultural  religion. 

3.  Prophetism. 

4.  Legalism. 


CHAPTER  II 
NOMADIC   RELIGION 

ACCORDING  to  the  unanimous  voice  of  tradition,  the  He- 
brews were  immigrants  to  Palestine,  coming  from  the  eastern 
desert  or  from  the  south.  The  tradition  is  confirmed  by 
the  monuments,  according  to  which  the  Chabiri,  a  nomadic 
people,  invaded  Syria  in  the  fourteenth  century  or  earlier. 
We  are  entitled,  therefore,  at  the  outset  to  seek  for  religious 
phenomena  akin  to  those  presented  by  the  desert-dwellers 
of  the  present  day.  Direct  testimony,  that  is,  accounts 
contemporary  with  the  desert  sojourn,  we  must  not  expect, 
for  the  literature  in  our  hands  dates  from  the  time  of  the 
monarchy.  But  the  conservatism  of  religion  is  such  that  we 
may  expect  survivals  from  the  earlier  stage  of  thought  to 
show  themselves  in  tradition.  The  tradition,  as  was  just 
remarked,  is  to  the  effect  that  the  fathers  of  the  people  were, 
if  not  nomads  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  at  least  shep- 
herds without  fixed  dwellings.  This  is  the  more  striking 
because  the  ideal  of  the  Hebrew  writers  for  themselves  was 
agricultural.  What  the  Israelite  of  the  ninth  century  de- 
sired for  himself  was  to  dwell  in  the  shadow  of  his  own  vine 
and  fig-tree,  with  none  to  molest  or  make  him  afraid.  But 
when  he  pictured  those  ideal  figures,  the  patriarchs,  he  rep- 
resented them  as  shepherds  wandering  up  and  down  the  land 
accompanied  by  their  flocks,  living  in  tents,  and  not  having 
title  even  to  a  burial-place  until  they  had  bought  it  from  the 
earlier  inhabitants. 

What,  then,  was  the  religion  of  these  fathers  of  the  nation? 
It  is  almost  superfluous  to  remark  that  it  was  not  mono- 
theism. The  theory  of  Renan,  according  to  which  early 
Semitic  monotheism  was  suggested  by  the  sterile  uniformity 

12 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  13 

of  the  desert,  so  different  from  the  engaging  variety  of  the 
cultivated  country,  i^  no  longer  held  by  any  one.  In  fact, 
to  the  nomad  the  phenomena  of  the  desert  are  as  varied  as 
are  those  of  any  other  region.  And  better  acquaintance 
with  nomadic  ideas  shows  us  that  the  early  Semites,  like  all 
other  peoples,  did  not  hold  a  belief  in  one  God.  This  is 
made  evident  by  the  Arab  descriptions  of  the  times  before 
Mohammed  as  well  as  by  the  survivals  of  polydemonism 
among  the  Bedawin  to-day.  The  idea  of  the  unity  of  God 
came  late  to  the  Semite  as  it  comes  late  to  other  peoples. 
The  impression  made  by  nature  upon  early  thinkers  is  that 
of  a  multiplicity  of  powers,  and  religion  consists  in  the  wor- 
ship or  at  least  the  conciliation  of  these  powers  whenever 
they  make  their  presence  known. 

Since  the  decipherment  of  the  Babylonian  and  Assyrian 
documents  the  endeavour  has  been  made  to  discover  in 
them  a  primitive  monotheism,  and  to  derive  Hebrew  relig- 
ion from  the  dwellers  in  the  Euphrates  Valley.  It  is  suffi- 
cient to  notice  here  that  if  any  monotheistic  beliefs  existed 
in  Babylon  they  were  the  property  of  a  few  isolated  thinkers 
and  never  moulded  the  popular  religion.  The  whole  impres- 
sion made  by  the  religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  is  that 
of  a  highly  developed  polytheism.  And  that  the  early  He- 
brews  worshipped  a  multitude  of  gods  is  affirmed  by  their  • 
own  writers.  The  author  of  Joshua's  farewell  speech  (Joshua 
24  : 2)  declares  that  the  fathers  served  other  gods  before 
their  migration  to  Canaan.  Even  as  late  as  the  time  of 
Jeremiah  the  prophet  could  say  that  Judah's  gods  were  as 
many  as  her  cities  (Jer.  2  : 28).  The  sacred  writers  did 
indeed  believe,  or  at  least  some  of  them  believed,  that  the 
polytheism  which  was  so  constant  a  phenomenon  in  their 
people's  history  was  a  declension  from  the  purer  faith  of 
the  fathers.  But  in  this  they  were  moved  by  the  same 
sort  of  idealism  which  prevails  in  almost  every  period  of 
history,  an  idealism  which  locates  the  golden  age  in  the 
past.  Careful  consideration  of  the  facts  will  free  us  from 
this  prepossession. 


14  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Polytheism  among  the  Hebrews  seems  to  be  indicated 
first  of  all,  by  the  fact  that  the  usual  Hebrew  name  for 
God  (Elohim)  is  plural  in  form.  Various  theories  have  been 
brought  forward  to  account  for  this  curious  fact.  For  the 
early  dogmaticians,  who  assumed  that  the  Old  Testament 
reveals  all  that  is  essential  for  Christian  belief,  it  was 
an  evidence  of  a  trinity  of  persons  in  the  Godhead.  This 
will  hardly  be  seriously  urged  to-day.  More  recent  is  the 
hypothesis  that  Elohim  is  a  plural  of  majesty,  akin  to  the 
formulae  in  which  monarchs  speak  of  themselves  as  "we." 
Such  plurals  of  majesty,  however,  are  without  parallel  in 
Hebrew.  The  only  view  that  can  be  urged  with  plausibility 
is  that  the  word  originally  designated  the  whole  group  of 
divinities  and  was  gradually  narrowed  down  so  as  to  be 
applied  to  the  One.  Vestiges  of  a  belief  in  a  group  of  divine 
beings  have  survived  even  in  our  present  Bible.  Yahweh 
himself  says:  "Man  has  become  like  one  of  us"  (Gen.  3  :  22). 
The  Creator  takes  counsel  of  his  associates:  "Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image"  (Gen.  1  :  26).  We  read  also  of  sons  of 
Elohim,  who  must  themselves  be  of  divine  nature  (Gen.  6:2). 
It  is  true  that  in  our  present  text  these  other  divine  beings 
are  thought  of  as  subordinate  to  the  chief  God.  But  this 
shows  only  how  the  earlier  belief  was  reconciled  with  the 
later. 

More  convincing  is  the  variety  of  names  which  are  used 
for  God.  Strictly  speaking,  the  fact  that  any  name  besides 
"God"  is  used  is  evidence  for  polytheism.  It  would  not 
occur  to  a  man  of  our  time  to  ask  for  the  name  of  the 
divinity  who  reveals  himself  to  him;  yet  this  is  what  Moses 
does.  And  in  Israel  we  find  several  names  applied  to  God. 
Elohim  we  have  just  discussed.  Then  we  have  El  (Gen. 
31 : 13;  35  : 1;  49  :  25,  and  elsewhere),  a  name  found  among 
the  other  Semites.  It  has  been  traced  among  the  Phoeni- 
cians and  Arabs  as  well  as  in  Babylonia.  Among  the 
Babylonians  it  seems  to  have  been  the  most  general  name 
for  God,  but  among  the  Phoenicians  it  was  applied  to  a 
particular  divinity  whom  Greek  authors  identified  with  Kro- 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  15 

nos.1  Again  we  find  a  name,  Shaddai,  sometimes  conjoined 
with  El,  but  apparently  once  designating  a  separate  divinity 
(Deut.  32  : 17).  In  poetic  passages  of  comparatively  early 
date  it  is  brought  into  parallelism  with  Yahweh,  as  though 
an  archaic  equivalent  of  that  name  (Gen.  49  :  25;  Num. 
24:4  and  16).  Further,  we  meet  with  Ely  on,  meaning 
Most  High,  usually  combined  with  El,  but  sometimes  inde- 
pendent (Num.  24  : 16;  Deut.  32  :  8).  In  the  former  pas- 
sage we  have  three  of  these  names  in  parallel  clauses:  "Who 
hears  the  words  of  El,  knows  the  knowledge  of  Elyon,  and 
sees  the  vision  of  Shaddai." 

The  name  Elyon  (Elioun)  was  known  among  the  Phoeni- 
cians, as  we  learn  from  Eusebius.  This  author  quotes  from 
Philo  of  Byblos,  who  in  his  account  of  the  Phoenician 
religion  says  that  Elioun  was  one  of  the  gods  who  died  and 
received  worship  after  his  death.2  The  theory  that  the  gods 
are  deified  men,  which  underlies  this  statement,  does  not 
here  concern  us.  All  that  we  have  now  to  do  is  to  note 
the  evidence  of  these  various  names  for  God.  Although 
applied  by  the  biblical  writers  to  the  one  God  of  the  He- 
brews, they  really  attest  a  primitive  polytheism. 

It  was  at  one  time  thought  that  the  primitive  ideas  of 
religion  could  be  discovered  by  tracing  the  etymology  of 
divine  names.  Unfortunately,  the  meaning  of  almost  all 
the  Semitic  names  for  God  is  obscure.  Elyon,  to  be  sure, 
is  quite  transparent,  meaning  the  Exalted  or  the  Most  High. 
This  meaning  made  it  easy  for  the  Hebrews  to  apply  it  to 
their  God.  Of  the  others,  the  name  Yahweh,  the  proper 
name  of  Israel's  God,  has  naturally  been  most  discussed, 
but  the  discussion  has  led  to  no  generally  received  result. 
The  idea  of  the  biblical  writers,  or  at  least  of  some  of  them, 
on  this  point  will  occupy  us  later.  As  to  the  other  divine 
names  we  remark  that  it  is  still  uncertain  whether  Shaddai 
means  Mighty  or  El  means  Powerful  (these  meanings  are 

1A  detailed  discussion  may  be  found  in  Lagrange,  Etudes  sur  les 
Religions  Semitiques,2  pp.  70-83. 

2  Eusebius,  Proeparatio  Evangelica,  I,  10. 


16  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

usually  attached  to  these  names),  although  both  words  have 
been  elaborately  investigated  by  scholars. 

These  names  for  God  have  survived  into  the  latest  period 
of  Hebrew  religion.  They  do  not  directly  give  us  light  on 
the  nomadic  stage.  From  analogy  we  conclude  that  before 
a  distinctly  polytheistic  stage  of  religion  there  was  a  some- 
what vague  polydemonism  among  the  Hebrew  clans,  much 
like  what  is  found  in  the  desert  to-day.  Throughout  Syria 
and  the  neighbouring  wilderness  there  are  countless  divini- 
ties dwelling  in  trees,  fountains,  rocks,  and  hills.  At  the 
present  day  these  superhuman  beings  are  called  saints  or 
prophets,  but  both  Christians  and  Moslems  pay  them  the 
worship  due  to  gods.  A  tree  which  grows  before  the  door 
of  a  church  is  regarded  as  an  incarnation  of  the  saint  to 
whom  the  church  itself  is  dedicated;  but  a  church  build- 
ing is  not  at  all  necessary  to  give  sanctity  to  a  tree.  A 
story  is  told  of  a  solitary  tree  standing  in  the  open  coun- 
try under  which  a  gazelle  had  taken  refuge.  A  hunter  fired 
at  the  animal  but  the  ball  turned  and  wounded  the  gunner. 
He  at  once  recognised  that  the  tree  was  inhabited  by  a 
saint  who  protected  those  who  took  refuge  with  him. 
Therefore,  although  no  one  had  ever  heard  of  a  saint  being 
buried  at  this  place,  the  people  of  the  nearest  village  agreed 
with  the  hunter's  interpretation  of  the  incident,  and  insti- 
tuted a  festival  in  honour  of  the  hitherto  unknown,  offered  a 
sheep,  baked  bread,  cooked  rice,  and  rejoiced  before  the 
sacred  object.  Other  examples  from  the  same  region  show 
that  it  is  not  always  the  grave  of  a  saint  which  makes  the  tree 
sacred.  The  tree  itself  has  supernatural  power.  He  who 
cuts  a  branch  from  it  will  be  punished,  even  visited  by 
death.  In  the  time  of  Mohammed  "trees  to  hang  things 
on"  were  common  in  Arabia,  and  the  name  was  given  be- 
cause of  the  custom  which  is  still  observed,  that  of  hanging 
a  piece  of  one's  garment  on  the  tree  to  show  it  reverence 
or  to  secure  its  potent  influence.1 

1  The  above  examples  are  taken  from  Jaussen,  Coutumes  des  Ardbes 
au  Pays  de  Moab,  but  similar  ones  will  be  found  in  Curtiss,  Primitive 
Semitic  Religion  today. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  17 

The  people  in  Canaan  did  not,  in  the  early  period,  differ 
essentially  from  those  who  dwelt  in  the  desert.  The  liter- 
ature in  our  hands  mentions  the  tamarisk  planted  by  Abra- 
ham (Gen.  21 :  33),  because <Jthe  tree  was  venerated  in  the 
later  period^  The  author  probably  did  not  think  of  it  as 
divine  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  but  it  was  to  him  at 
least  sacred,  as  he  indicates  in  saying:  "He  planted  a  tama- 
risk in  Beersheba  and  called  there  on  the  name  of  Yahweh, 
El-olam."  The  calling  on  the  divinity  showed  his  presence 
in  that  place.  Since  men  at  this  stage  of  culture  almost 
necessarily  conceive  of  a  god  as  dwelling  in  a  material  object, 
<(\t  is  altogether  probable  that  the  earliest  inhabitants  be- 
lieved Yahweh  to  inhabit  the  tree.  So  with  the  oak  or 
oak  grove  at  Mamre,  also  connected  with  Abraham  (Gen. 
13  : 18;  14  : 13,  and  18  : 1-4).  The  uncanny  or  supernatural 
quality  of  such  trees  might  be  ascribed  to  idols  buried  be- 
neath them.  When  Jacob  took  the  foreign  gods  which  were 
in  possession  of  his  family  and  buried  them  under  the  oak 
at  Shechem  the  divinities  who  inhabited  the  images  took  up 
their  residence  in  the  tree  (Gen.  35  : 4).  Later  we  read  of 
the  Oak  of  the  Pillar  in  Shechem  and  are  inclined  to  identify 
it  with  Jacob's  tree.  It  certainly  was  a  sacred  tree,  for  the 
pillar  which  is  mentioned  is  one  of  the  pillars  which  regu- 
larly stood  at  a  sanctuary  until  the  Deuteronomic  reform. 
The  oak  in  the  sanctuary  of  Yahweh  (Joshua  24  : 26)  is 
apparently  the  same.  In  the  same  chapter  with  the  Oak 
of  the  Pillar  we  read  of  the  Oak  of  the  Soothsayers  (Judges 
9  : 37),  and  in  other  places  of  the  Oak  of  the  Diviner  (Oak 
of  Moreh  in  our  version,  Gen.  12  :  6;  Deut.  11 : 30).  Such 
trees  were  probably  oracular,  like  the  oak  of  Zeus  at  Dodona. 
Then  the  pains  taken  to  tell  us  that  Deborah  was  buried 
under  an  oak  is  explicable  only  if  the  people  believed  the 
spirit  of  the  dead  to  live  in  the  tree  (Gen.  35  :  8) .  Gideon's 
oak,  which  is  spoken  of  as  the  place  where  the  angel,  or 
Yahweh  himself,  appeared  to  the  hero,  may  be  of  the  same 
nature  with  these  others  (Judges  6:11  and  19),  and  with  it 
we  may  mention  the  Palm  of  Deborah  (4  :  5).  An  omen  is 


18  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

given  by  the  rustling  in  the  tree,  indicating  that  the  in- 
dwelling divinity  is  on  the  move  to  help  his  people  (II  Sam. 
5  :  22-25),  and  the  flaming  bush  in  which  Yahweh  appeared 
to  Moses  belongs  in  the  same  group  (Ex.  3:2).  In  fact, 
Yahweh  is  called  in  one  passage,  He  who  dwells  in  the  bush 
(Deut.  33  : 16). 

^ne  P°lemic  °f the  prophets  reveals  distinctly  the  form  of 
the  popular  religion.  Jeremiah  tells  us  how  the  Israelites 
worship  under  every  green  tree  (Jer.  3:6),  and  reproaches 
them  with  calling  a  stick  their  father  (2  : 27).  The  word 
translated  stick  is  the  same  that  is  elsewhere  rendered  tree, 
so  that  possibly  the  author  has  direct  reference  to  tree- 
worship.  The  case  would  be  little  different  if  he  meant  a 
wooden  idol,  for  the  earliest  wooden  idols  were  pieces  of  a 
sacred  tree  rudely  carved  into  human  semblance.  Isaiah 
gives  us  to  know  in  unmistakable  terms  that  oaks  were 
objects  of  the  people's  affection  (Isaiah  1 : 29). 

Fountains  are  held  in  reverence  by  almost  all  peoples. 
To  the  Bedawin  they  are  especially  important  because  of 
their  rarity.  The  fountain  seems  to  have  a  life  of  its  own, 
and  it  is  beneficent  to  men  and  animals.  The  story  of 
Hagar  and  the  fountain  Beer-lahai-roi  is  evidence  of  the 
Israelite  feeling  in  the  nomadic  stage.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  sur- 
vival from  the  time  when  the  fountain  was  worshipped.  In 
one  form  of  the  story,  as  we  now  read  it  (Gen.  16  :  7-14),  it 
is  the  angel  of  Yahweh  who  reveals  himself  to  Hagar.  In 
the  parallel  it  is  Elohim  (21  : 14 /.).  It  is  not  too  bold  to 
suppose  that  in  the  earliest  form  of  the  story  it  was  the  spirit 
inhabiting  the  fountain  who  gave  the  revelation.  In  this, 
as  in  so  many  other  cases,  the  genius  loci  has  been  displaced 
by  the  angel  or  by  Elohim.  In  all  probability  the  name  of 
the  fountain  originally  told  who  the  divinity  was,  but  this 
has  now  been  purposely  obscured.  The  name  of  the  well 
at  Beersheba  was  given  by  a  sacred  ceremony,  and  is  inter- 
preted to  mean  either  the  Well  of  Seven  or  the  Well  of  the 
Oath.  But,  as  we  have  traces  of  a  divinity  named  Sheba  in 
some  of  the  Hebrew  proper  names,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  19 

well  was  his.  There  is  no  evidence  that  there  were  seven 
wells,  and  even  if  we  take  Sheba  in  its  meaning  of  seven  it  is 
more  natural  to  conclude  that  originally  seven  spirits  were 
supposed  to  dwell  in  the  well  than  that  the  name  should  have 
been  given  on  account  of  the  seven  lambs  used  in  an  ancient 
covenant  (Gen.  21 : 22-34).  In  the  country  east  of  the 
Jordan  there  is  at  the  present  day  a  cult  of  the  daughters  of 
the  fountain.  A  simple  wall  with  niches  is  erected  over  the 
fountain  and  here  the  people  pay  their  devotions.1  Among 
sacred  fountains  perhaps  the  most  important  was  the  one  at 
Kadesh.  The  name  itself  indicates  a  sanctuary,  and  the 
other  which  was  attached  to  it,  Fountain  of  Judgment  (En 
Mishpat,  Gen.  14 : 7),  indicates  that  an  oracle  was  con- 
nected with  the  place.  Massah  and  Meribah  are  names  of 
places  in  the  vicinity,  and  probably  show  that  the  divinity 
gave  decisions  in  cases  of  dispute,  and  that  this  was  done 
by  the  ordeal.2  Moses  was  the  minister  of  the  oracle,  and 
it  is  not  improbable  that  the  fountain  was  the  place  where 
he  consulted  the  divinity.  If  this  be  so  the  tradition  which 
made  Moses  bring  water  from  the  rock  was  the  local  tra- 
dition concerning  the  origin  of  this  source.  We  find  also  a 
place  name,  Baalath-beer,  the  Goddess  of  the  Well,  which 
indicates  another  of  these  sacred  sources  (Joshua  19  : 8), 
and  we  may  add  to  the  group  the  well-known  Dan,  situated 
at  one  of  the  copious  sources  of  the  Jordan.  Here  also  the 
divinity  of  the  place  was  appealed  to  to  decide  cases  of  dis- 
pute, his  name  being  Judge. 

Two  objections  will  be  urged  against  this  enumeration 
of  divinities.  One  is  that  these  are  not  nomadic  sanctuaries, 
but  are  found  within  the  borders  of  Palestine.  The  other 
is  that  we  have  no  intimation  in  the  Bible  that  worship  was 
offered  at  any  of  these  places.  To  the  first  the  reply  is 
that,  with  the  exception  of  Dan,  all  these  fountains  are  ac- 
tually located  in  nomadic  territory,  that  is,  in  the  border  of 
the  cultivated  country,  where  the  people  kept  up  the  pas- 

1  Jaussen,  Coutumes  des  Arabes,  p.  302. 

8  Meribah  is  the  Place  of  Litigation,  and  Massah  the  Place  of  Testing. 


20  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

toral  life  all  through  their  history.  The  answer  to  the  other 
objection  is  that  we  must  not  expect  the  biblical  writers  to 
make  record  of  practices  which  were  proscribed  in  the  later 
period  of  the  history.  When  Abraham  is  represented  as 
sacrificing  at  Beersheba  and  when  Moses  is  pictured  ad- 
ministering the  oracle  at  Kadesh,  this  is  as  much  as  we  could 
expect  them  to  put  on  record. 

Among  the  nomads  of  to-day  we  learn  of  sacrifice  offered 
to  a  mountain.1  The  history  of  the  Hebrews  gives  dis- 
tinct parallels.  Sinai  and  Horeb  were  the  residence  of 
Yahweh.  At  Kadesh  the  hill  or  rock  from  which  the  foun- 
tain flowed  partook  of  its  sacredness.  Mizpah  of  Gilead 
was  a  hilltop  sanctuary.  Balaam  sought  Yahweh  on  the 
heights  overlooking  the  Jordan  Valley  (Num.  22  :  41 ;  23  : 14 
and  28).  The  Song  of  Moses  congratulates  Zebulun  on 
the  sanctuaries  on  the  mountains  (Deut.  33  : 19).  It  is 
probable  that  the  location  of  Solomon's  temple  was  decided 
by  the  sacredness  of  the  hill  on  whose  top  it  was  built.  In 
fact,  the  naked  summit  of  the  hill  is  the  central  object  of 
the  Moslem  sanctuary  which  stands  on  the  spot  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  The  complaint  of  Jeremiah  that  the  people  sac- 
rificed on  every  high  hill  as  well  as  under  every  green  tree 
is  well  known,  and  Ezekiel  reckons  eating  on  the  mountains 
among  the  transgressions  of  Judah  (Ezek.  22  :  9;  cf.  20  :  28). 
Among  the  sacred  mountains  Sinai  and  Horeb  certainly 
belong  to  the  nomadic  region,  and  the  others  show  that 
nomads  and  agriculturists  are  at  the  same  stage  of  religious 
thinking. 

Sacred  stones  belong  in  the  same  class  with  sacred  moun- 
tains. The  classic  example  is  the  one  which  Jacob  set  up 
at  Bethel  (Gen.  28  : 10-22),  and  which  was  apparently  an 
object  of  worship  long  after  the  settlement  in  Canaan. 
Such  a  stone  is  still  pointed  out  as  the  residence  of  a  divinity 
by  a  dream  or  revelation,  as  may  be  illustrated  from  recent 
observation.  At  Maan  in  the  transjordanic  region  there 
is  a  rock  seven  feet  high.  One  night  a  woman  took  shelter 
1  Jaussen,  op.  cit.,  p.  359. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  21 

by  it  and  in  her  sleep  she  saw  a  serpent  emerge  from  the 
rock.  At  the  same  time  a  voice  said:  "I  am  the  Welieh 
[female  saint]  of  the  rock."  Soon  after,  another  person 
sleeping  here  had  a  similar  dream,  only  instead  of  a  serpent 
he  saw  a  woman.  The  reputation  of  the  rock  as  the  home 
of  a  spirit  was  thus  established,  and  the  women  of  the 
neighbourhood  began  to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  saint  and  to 
show  their  devotion  to  her  by  kissing  the  rock,  by  anointing 
it  with  henna,  and  by  burning  incense  before  it.1  The 
parallel  with  the  experience  of  Jacob  is  exact,  except  that 
the  inhabitant  of  the  rock  is  no  longer  called  a  god  but  a 
spirit  or  saint.  In  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  we  read  that 
Joshua  set  up  a  stone  under  the  oak  which  is  in  the  sanc- 
tuary at  Shechem  and  said:  "This  stone  shall  be  a  witness 
against  us,  for  it  has  heard  all  the  words  of  Yahweh  which 
he  has  spoken  among  us,  and  it  shall  be  a  witness  against 
you  that  you  will  not  deny  your  God"  (Joshua  24  :  26).  It 
must  be  clear  that  if  the  stone  hears  all  the  words  spoken 
it  is  animated  by  a  spirit.  Although  here  made  a  witness 
in  the  cause  of  Yahweh,  this  spirit  must  have  been  originally 
a  divinity.  So  we  must  say  of  the  stone  which  Jacob  set 
up  as  a  witness  between  himself  and  Laban  (Gen.  31  :  45, 
51).  Owing  to  the  combination  of  documents  in  this  nar- 
rative, the  stone  is  now  supplemented  by  a  heap  of  stones. 
One  of  the  component  documents  made  the  single  stone  the 
witness;  the  other  made  it  the  heap  of  stones.  This  only 
shows  that  a  divinity  may  inhabit  a  group  of  stones  as  well 
as  a  single  stone.  The  circle  of  stones  at  Gilgal  attributed 
to  Joshua  (Joshua  4  : 3  and  8)  marked  a  sanctuary  which 
is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  history.  There  were  images 
here  also,  as  we  read  in  one  passage  (Judges  3  : 19).  In 
the  book  of  Exodus  a  sanctuary  is  marked  by  twelve  stones 
set  up  by  Moses,  and  here  the  covenant  with  Yahweh  is 
entered  into  (Ex.  24  : 4). 

The  single  stone  set  up  at  an  altar  as  the  residence  of  the 
divinity  was  called  a  maweba,  and  such  a  stone  seems  to 
1  Jaussen,  op.  tit.,  p.  303. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

have  been  set  up  at  every  altar  of  Yahweh  until  the  pro- 
mulgation of  Deuteronomy.  The  earliest  decalogue,  when 
it  prohibits  molten  images,  seems  tacitly  to  recognise  these 
primitive  pillars  as  legitimate.  Such  upright  stones  are 
still  found  in  Palestine,  and  more  have  been  uncovered  by 
excavation.1  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  these  menhirs 
are  specifically  nomadic,  but  Arabic  antiquity  shows  that 
the  nomads  shared  the  belief  of  their  neighbours  with  re- 
gard to  them,  and  the  biblical  evidence  seems  convincing. 
In  connection  with  these  monuments  we  should  note  that 
altars  sometimes  receive  proper  names  as  though  identi- 
fied with  the  divinity.  Jacob  called  one  El-God-of-Israel 
(Gen.  33  : 20),  Moses  named  one  Yahweh-my-banner  (Ex. 
17  :  15),  and  Gideon  had  his  Yahweh-Shalom  (Judges 
6  :  24).  Since  the  earliest  altars  received  the  blood  of  the 
victim  directly  from  the  hand  of  the  offerer,  they,  like  the 
pillars,  must  have  been  identified  with  the  divinity  himself. 
Otherwise  we  must  suppose  that  the  names  ascribed  to  the 
altars  in  the  passages  just  cited  were  originally  given  to  the 
attendant  maweboth.  An  altar  named  Ed,  that  is,  Witness, 
existed  beyond  the  Jordan  to  a  comparatively  late  date 
(Joshua  22  : 34). 

In  one  of  the  early  accounts  of  the  covenant  entered  into 
by  Yahweh  and  Israel  we  find  that  the  blood  was  sprinkled 
on  the  altar  and  on  the  people  (Ex.  24  :  6-8).  The  blood 
which  unifies  the  parties  should,  of  course,  be  applied  to 
both,  so  that  we  have  no  doubt  that  the  altar  was  identified 
with  Yahweh  himself.  Possibly  we  should  interpret  the  cov- 
enant between  Jacob  and  Laban  in  this  light.  After  the 
heap  of  stones  was  gathered,  the  two  parties  ate  upon  the 
heap.  Yahweh  was  thus  made,  in  the  most  realistic  sense,  a 
partaker  of  the  food,  and  therefore  a  party  to  the  cov- 
enant. Down  to  the  present  time  it  is  the  divinity  localised 

1  One  at  Maan  is  pictured  by  Jaussen,  Mission  Archeologique  en 
Arabie  (1909),  p.  9;  those  uncovered  by  excavation  at  Megiddo  and 
Gezer  are  reproduced  by  Vincent,  Canaan  d'apres  VExploration  recente 
(1907);  those  at  Tell  es-Safi  by  Bliss  and  Macalister,  Excavations  in 
Palestine  (1902),  plate  9. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  23 

in  some  material  object  who  is  invoked  in  case  of  an  oath; 
"If  a  person  accused  of  crime  dares  to  go  to  a  sanctuary, 
lay  his  hand  on  the  grave  or  pillar  (of  the  saint)  and  swear 
that  he  has  not  committed  the  crime  he  is  regarded  as  inno- 
cent. The  saint  punishes  more  severely  than  a  human 
judge."1 

If  we  may  judge  by  the  nomads  of  to-day,  the  early 
Israelites  worshipped  not  the  material  objects  but  the  spirits 
which  dwelt  in  them.  The  giving  of  such  a  name  as  Bethel 
(House-of-God)  to  the  stone  would  indicate  this.  The  Arabs 
believe  the  desert  to  be  inhabited  by  a  class  of  spirits 
whom  they  call  the  Ginn.  These  appear  frequently  in  the 
Arabian  Nights.  Such  spirits,  as  a  rule,  have  not  attained 
the  dignity  of  gods;  that  is,  they  do  not  receive  a  regular 
worship.  But  they  must  be  conciliated  on  occasion;  for  ex- 
ample, when  their  territory  is  invaded.  When  the  tent  is 
pitched  in  a  new  place  a  sacrifice  is  offered  to  the  local 
Ginnee,  or  a  meal  is  cooked  for  him.  Even  in  the  towns 
when  ground  is  broken  for  a  new  building,  a  foundation-sac- 
rifice is  offered  to  the  genius  loci;  else  he  will  avenge  himself 
by  sending  calamity  on  the  occupants  of  the  house.  This 
was  the  custom  in  ancient  Palestine  also,  as  the  excavations 
have  shown.  When  a  new  family  is  established  by  the  mar- 
riage of  a  young  man  and  young  woman  who  set  up  their 
own  tent,  a  sacrifice  is  offered,  and  they  beg  permission  of 
the  "master  of  the  place"  to  occupy  it  with  a  new  home. 
The  tent-pole  is  smeared  with  the  blood  of  the  victim;  and 
where  the  Bedawy  adopts  the  agricultural  life  and  builds  a 
more  permanent  dwelling  the  blood  is  smeared  on  the  lintel, 
as  was  the  Israelite  custom  at  Passover. 

The  local  genius  may  rise  to  the  dignity  of  patron  divinity 
to  a  family  or  clan  by  revealing  himself  and  thus  showing 
his  friendly  interest.  In  this  case  an  altar  or  pillar  is  erected 
and  sacrifice  is  brought  at  fixed  intervals.  The  revelation, 
however,  may  be  hostile  rather  than  friendly,  intended  at 
least  to  warn  the  recipient  that  he  must  pay  due  respect  to 
1  Pakstina-Jahrbuch  (1911),  p.  103. 


24  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  proprietor  of  the  ground.  Some  stories  which  are  now 
imbedded  in  the  Hebrew  text  are  evidently  based  on  tradi- 
tions of  this  kind.  The  biblical  authors  suppose  in  every 
such  case  that  the  divinity  is  Yahweh.  But  the  original 
stories  probably  attributed  the  revelation  to  a  purely  local 
divinity.  The  mysterious  stranger  who  wrestles  with  Jacob 
(now  called  an  angel,  Gen.  32  : 24-32)  was  originally  such  a 
local  divinity.  In  this  instance  Jacob's  strength  and  valour 
are  such  that  he  comes  off  victor  and  even  wrests  a  blessing 
from  the  hostile  power,  though  not  without  receiving  a 
wound.  The  ghostly  nature  of  the  visitant  is  made  evident 
by  his  anxiety  to  be  allowed  to  go  before  daybreak,  for  the 
night  demons,  like  the  ghosts  of  popular  superstition,  cannot 
endure  the  light  of  the  sun.  This  is  further  evidence  that 
the  original  tradition  was  not  recounted  of  Yahweh  or  of 
his  angel,  since  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  had  reason  to 
shun  the  daylight. 

The  origin  of  this  saga  escapes  us.  It  may  have  been 
intended  to  explain  the  place-name  Penuel  (Face-of-El),  or 
it  may  have  been  an  old  myth  representing  the  dangerous 
temper  of  the  Jabbok.  In  either  case  it  throws  light  upon 
early  beliefs.  The  divinities  were  near  to  men,  so  that  they 
could  be  seen  face  to  face,  but  the  encounter  was  not  always 
to  be  desired.1  An  even  more  striking  illustration  of  the 
belief  is  found  in  the  story  of  Moses  and  the  circumcision  of 
his  son  (Ex.  4  :  24-26).  In  this  we  read  that  at  one  of  the 
camping  places  in  the  desert  the  divinity  attacked  Moses 
and  would  have  slain  him.  Zipporah  was  quick-witted 
enough  to  remember  that  circumcision  blood  is  a  power- 
ful charm.  She  therefore  circumcised  her  infant  son  and 
touched  her  husband  with  the  blood,  whereupon  the  hostile 
God  left  him.  As  in  the  other  case,  our  text  identifies  the 
mysterious  enemy  with  Yahweh.  But  he  has  none  of  the 
features  of  Israel's  covenant  God,  and  his  attack  upon 
the  prophet  is  passing  strange  in  view  of  the  fact  that 

XA  Phoenician  locality,  Face-of-God,  mentioned  by  Strabo  (Geog., 
XVI,  ii,  15),  is  brought  by  Ewald  into  connection  with  Penuel. 


NOMADIC   RELIGION  25 

Moses  was  a  chosen  instrument  for  the  redemption  of  Israel. 
The  only  explanation  is  that  a  story  of  some  local  divinity 
has  been  adopted  in  the  Yahweh  tradition.1 

In  this  connection  we  may  notice  further  the  fragment 
preserved  in  the  book  of  Joshua  (Joshua  5 : 13-15),  according 
to  which  Joshua  at  the  invasion  of  the  land  met  a  strange 
apparition  carrying  a  sword.  The  Israelite  leader  went 
boldly  up  to  him  and  asked:  "Art  thou  for  us  or  for  our 
enemies?"  The  reply  was  to  the  effect  that  the  stranger 
was  leader  of  the  heavenly  host,  apparently  coming  to  the 
help  of  Israel.  The  text,  as  we  have  it,  only  tells  us  that 
Joshua  was  commanded  to  put  off  his  shoes  in  recognition  of 
the  sanctity  of  the  place,  and  the  thread  is  then  abruptly 
broken.  It  is  not  too  bold  to  suppose  that  this  was  a  local 
saga,  according  to  which  the  divinity  of  the  place  promised  to 
help  the  Israelites  in  getting  possession  of  the  country  on  con- 
dition that  they  continue  to  honour  him  at  this  sanctuary. 

These  survivals  are  sufficient  to  show  that  the  early 
Israelites  worshipped  a  multitude  of  local  divinities.  Even 
very  late  authors  complain  that  the  desert  demons  (satyrs, 
se'irim)  still  receive  the  sacrifices  (Lev.  17:  7),  and  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  note  the  tenacity  of  life  shown  by  one  of 
them,  named  Azazel.  The  question  which  will  next  suggest 
itself  is  whether  the  spirits  of  dead  men  were  among  the 
objects  of  worship.  There  is  a  growing  consensus  of  opinion 
that  the  Hebrews,  like  all  other  peoples  at  a  certain  stage  of 
thought,  worshipped  these  spirits.  We  have  already  seen 
that  among  the  natives  of  Syria  at  the  present  day  the  tombs 
of  holy  men  are  places  of  devotion,  and  that  an  oath  taken 
in  the  name  of  a  Wely  is  more  binding  than  the  one  taken 
in  the  name  of  Allah.  Not  all  deceased  persons  receive 
this  honour;  only  men  (sometimes  women)  who  have  been 
distinguished  for  sanctity  during  their  lifetime.  Like  the 
wonder-worker  Elisha  the  power  of  the  saint  continues  after 
his  death,  and  miracles  are  wrought  at  his  grave.  For  this 

1  Jewish  tradition  holds  that  circumcision  is  a  prophylactic  against 
the  demons. 


26  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

reason  he  is  honoured  there  by  sacrifices  and  festivals.  Par- 
allel with  the  case  of  the  local  divinity  cited  above  is  the 
declaration  of  an  inhabitant  of  Maan:  "If  one  swears  by 
Abdallah  [a  Wely  buried  at  Maan]  and  the  oath  is  false  he 
is  sure  to  die."  l  Among  the  saints  who  are  thus  honoured  the 
prophets  and  patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament  still  have  a 
place.  The  tomb  of  Abraham  at  Hebron  is  one  of  the  most 
sacred  spots  of  the  Mohammedans,  and  the  Bedawin  across  the 
Jordan  are  sure  that  El-Halil  (the  Friend  of  God),  as  Abraham 
is  called,  visits  and  helps  them  in  answer  to  their  prayers.2 

To  appreciate  the  tenacity  of  religious  belief  and  custom 
we  need  only  remind  ourselves  that  these  examples  are  taken 
from  a  region  where  Islam  has  endeavoured  to  enforce  a 
strict  monotheism  for  thirteen  hundred  years.  It  is  impor- 
tant to  notice  that  the  spirit  of  the  ancestor  or  alleged  ances- 
tor of  a  clan  is  the  one  most  sure  to  receive  religious  venera- 
tion. He  is  thought  to  accompany  his  descendants  on  their 
wanderings  and  to  protect  them  in  danger.  He  is  therefore 
invoked  by  them  in  time  of  trouble.  Unsettled  as  the  life 
of  the  nomads  is,  all  of  the  tribes  have  their  regular  places  of 
resort  for  religious  purposes,  and  these  are  generally  graves 
of  an  ancestor.  The  place  is  marked  by  a  heap  of  stones: 
"  An  Arab  never  passes  by  such  a  monument  without  making 
a  brief  prayer;  if  he  is  not  in  haste  he  stops  and  prostrates 
himself  in  token  of  veneration;  and  on  occasion  he  makes  a 
visit  of  more  ceremony,  when  he  offers  a  sacrifice  in  conse- 
quence of  a  promise  or  vow." 3  In  addition  to  these  private 
sacrifices  there  are  also  public  occasions  when  the  greater 
part  of  the  tribe  makes  a  pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  and  holds 
a  feast  of  some  days'  duration.  At  the  return  of  a  success- 
ful expedition  also  an  animal  is  sacrificed  at  the  tomb  of  the 
ancestor  in  recognition  of  his  help. 

Other  testimony  might  be  adduced.  The  reverence  paid 
to  the  tomb  of  Mohammed  is  rightly  regarded  as  polytheistic 
by  the  Wahhabees.  Yet  it  is  said  that  a  pious  Moslem 

1  Jaussen,  Coutumes  des  Ardbes,  p.  311.  *Ibid.,  p.  308. 

« Ibid.,  p.  317;  cf.  p.  355. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  27 

living  in  the  third  century  of  the  Hejra  boasted  of  having 
offered  twelve  thousand  animals  in  honour  of  the  prophet. 
The  obstinacy  of  popular  beliefs  was  perhaps  never  more 
strikingly  manifested,  for  Mohammed  himself  forbade  such 
rites  as  savouring  of  heathenism.  Among  the  Arabs  it  is  still 
the  custom  to  sacrifice  a  sheep  at  the  death  of  a  member  of 
the  tribe,  and  another  seven  days  later.  This  latter  is  called 
the  sacrifice  of  consolation,  and  the  phrase  reminds  us  of  the 
cup  of  consolation  spoken  of  by  the  Hebrew  prophet  (Jer.  16: 
7).  In  one  case  the  sacrificial  feast,  in  the  other  the  libation 
is  supposed  to  benefit  the  soul  of  the  departed.  The  blood 
of  sacrifices  offered  at  the  tomb  of  a  saint  is  still  poured  over 
the  heap  of  stones  or  other  monument,  as  it  was  poured  or 
smeared  on  the  stone  altar  or  pillar  in  the  old  days.  Oil 
is  also  poured  on  the  monument.  Another  rite  of  worship 
is  the  rubbing  of  earth,  taken  from  the  tomb,  on  the  face  of 
the  worshipper.  The  sacredness  of  such  earth  makes  it 
effective  for  healing  the  sick,  on  whom  it  is  rubbed  in  the 
same  way.1  Another  custom  is  that  of  offering  the  hair 
of  the  mourner  at  the  tomb:  "The  women  cut  their  hair  at 
the  death  of  a  husband,  father,  or  near  relative.  The  long 
tresses  are  laid  upon  the  tomb  or  rolled  about  the  stone 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  grave.  I  have  observed  a  more 
curious  custom;  two  stakes  were  driven,  one  at  the  head,  the 
other  at  the  foot  of  the  grave,  and  a  cord  was  stretched  from 
one  to  the  other.  On  this  cord  were  tied  the  long  locks  of 
hair." 2  In  the  time  of  Mohammed  we  are  told  that  when 
Chalid  ibn  al-Walid  died  all  the  women  of  his  clan  shaved 
their  heads  and  laid  the  hair  on  his  tomb.3 

The  fact  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made,  namely, 
that  Mohammed  attempted  to  suppress  such  customs,  is  of 
importance,  for  it  shows  that  he,  who  knew  the  thoughts 
of  his  countrymen  so  well,  believed  their  mourning  rites 
to  be  polytheistic.  The  prohibition  of  swearing  by  one's 
ancestors  and  the  command  to  swear  by  Allah  alone4  must 

1  Jaussen,  Coutumes,  p.  310.  2  Ibid.,  p.  94. 

» Goldziher,  Muhammedanische  Studien,  I,  p.  248.         4  Ibid.,  p.  230. 


28  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

be  motived  in  the  same  way.  Other  testimony  from  Arab 
antiquity  might  be  adduced.  For  example,  the  ground 
around  a  tomb  was,  at  least  in  some  cases,  a  sanctuary 
and  an  asylum.  The  prohibition  of  marking  off  such  ground 
except  for  God  and  the  prophet,  put  into  Mohammed's 
mouth  by  tradition,  is  doubtless  apocryphal,  but  it  shows 
the  attitude  of  the  theologians  to  be  the  same  with  that 
of  the  prophet  himself.  The  stones  erected  at  the  grave 
are  doubtless,  both  in  Arabic  and  in  Hebrew  antiquity,  sa- 
cred stones  like  those  at  the  sanctuary  of  a  divinity. 

It  is  only  by  this  review  of  Semitic  custom  outside  Israel 
that  we  are  able  to  understand  survivals  which  are  attested 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  First  of  all,  the  custom  of  marking 
the  grave  by  a  stone,  which  is  recorded  in  at  least  one  Old 
Testament  passage:  This  is  the  grave  of  Rachel  (Gen. 
35  : 20;  I  Sam.  10  : 2).  Rachel  was  ancestress  of  the  two 
tribes  Joseph  and  Benjamin,  and  her  grave  seems  to  have 
been  located  on  the  boundary  of  these  tribes.  Here  her 
spirit  lingers,  for  Jeremiah  hears  her  lament  over  the  ap- 
proaching captivity  of  her  children  (Jer.  31  : 15).  The  pil- 
lar over  the  grave  is  called  by  the  same  name  which  is  used 
elsewhere  (ma^eba)  for  the  sacred  stone  set  up  at  a  sanctu- 
ary. The  custom  is  further  illustrated  by  the  act  of  Absa- 
lom. The  prince  had  no  son,  and  for  this  reason  he  took 
and  reared  a  pillar  (maffebd)  in  the  King's  Vale  (II  Sam. 
18  : 18).  He  justified  himself  by  saying:  "I  have  no  son 
to  keep  my  name  in  remembrance."  The  word  translated 
"keep  in  remembrance"  means  to  pay  religious  reverence 
to  a  divinity.  The  thought  of  the  passage  is  that  Absalom, 
despairing  of  a  son  (who  alone  could  pay  the  regular  relig- 
ious rites)  erected  this  pillar  in  order  that  charitable  people 
might  be  reminded  of  him  and  to  a  certain  extent  give  his 
soul  the  honour  which  the  departed  crave.1 

We  now  see  why  so  many  tombs  of  heroes  are  mentioned 

1  The  text  of  the  passage  is  not  in  order,  and  it  is  possible  that  in  the 
earliest  account  it  was  David  who  erected  the  pillar;  but  this  would 
not  make  any  difference  for  our  present  inquiry. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  29 

in  the  Hebrew  narrative.  The  cave  where  Abraham  and 
Sarah  are  buried  is  important  to  the  writer  because  it  was 
in  some  sense  a  sanctuary.  That  its  sanctity  has  persisted 
until  the  present  day  we  have  already  noted.  Jacob  took 
pains  to  secure  that  he  be  buried  in  the  tomb  of  his  fathers 
(Gen.  47  : 30).  The  bones  of  Joseph  were  brought  from 
Egypt  in  order  that  they  might  rest  among  his  descendants 
(Joshua  24  : 32).  The  burial-place  of  Joshua,  of  Eleazar 
and  of  each  of  the  Judges  is  carefully  noted.  Absalom's 
pillar  was  not  the  only  monument  consecrated  to  this  prince, 
for  the  heap  of  stones  raised  over  his  body  where  he  fell 
served  the  same  purpose  with  the  pillar  (II  Sam.  18  : 17). 
Similar  heaps  of  stones  were  raised  over  the  slain  Canaan- 
ites,  the  kings  of  Ai,  and  the  five  kings  slain  at  Makkedah 
(Joshua  8  : 29;  10  :27).  And  the  criminal  Achan  received 
the  same  honour  (Joshua  7  : 26). 

Here  modern  ideas  are  in  conflict  with  those  of  antiquity 
and  we  are  shocked  by  the  thought  that  the  souls  of  bad 
men,  like  Absalom  and  Achan,  should  receive  the  kind  of 
reverence  paid  the  gods.  But  early  religion  gives  a  large 
place  to  fear,  and,  the  spirit  of  a  bad  man  being  as  truly  su- 
pernatural as  that  of  a  good  man,  it  must  be  placated  even 
more  carefully.  This  is  illustrated  by  the  Greek  hero-wor- 
ship, where  all  the  dead  are  regarded  as  "blameless,"  what- 
ever their  previous  record  has  been.  Some  of  the  shrines 
at  which  the  Greeks  paid  reverence  are  distinctly  affirmed 
to  be  those  of  men  of  violent  lives.  The  spirit  is  especially 
dangerous  if  the  body  which  it  once  inhabited  is  left  un- 
buried,  and  the  Hebrew  pains  in  caring  for  burial  is  expli- 
cable on  this  ground.  David  cares  for  the  body  of  Abner 
and  for  the  bones  of  Saul's  descendants,  as  well  as  for  those 
of  the  king  himself  (II  Sam.  3  : 32  and  21  : 14).  These 
last  are  laid  in  the  ancestral  tomb,  a  boon  which  was  espe- 
cially desired,  since  thus  one  was  sure  to  receive  attention 
from  the  living  members  of  the  family.  The  curious  cus- 
tom of  burial  in  one's  own  house  is  occasionally  recorded 
(I  Sam.  25  : 1;  I  Kings  2  : 34).  This  is  accounted  for  by 


30  THE  RELIGION  OP  ISRAEL 

the  desire  of  the  family  to  have  the  spirit  of  the  ancestor 
as  protector  of  the  home.1  The  kings  of  Israel,  we  are  ex- 
pressly told,  were  buried  in  the  palace  or  in  an  adjoining 
garden.  The  objection  made  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel  to 
this  custom,  owing  to  the  proximity  of  the  palace  to  the 
temple,  sufficiently  shows  that  there  was  a  religious  motive; 
and  from  this  point  of  view  we  may  interpret  the  burning 
made  for  these  kings  as  a  religious  rite,  either  sacrificial 
or  designed  to  destroy  property  which  was  taboo  because 
it  belonged  to  a  superhuman  being. 

Supernatural  power  is  attributed  to  the  dead  or  dying. 
The  Pentateuchal  narratives  give  the  dying  Isaac,  Jacob, 
and  Moses  power  to  predict  the  future  and  to  determine 
the  course  of  coming  events  (Gen.  27  and  49;  Deut.  33). 
The  yearly  festival  in  memory  of  Jephthah's  daughter  was 
probably  a  religious  rite  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  dead 
maiden  received  comfort  from  the  sympathy  of  the  young 
women  who  gathered  at  the  shrine,  and  possibly  was  grati- 
fied by  the  banquet  of  which  they  partook. 

Just  as  the  demon  resided  in  the  pillar  erected  to  him, 
so  the  spirit  of  the  dead  man  took  up  its  abode  in  the  pillar 
or  heap  of  stones  erected  over  his  body.  This  conception 
we  know  to  have  been  prevalent  among  the  neighbours  of 
Israel,  for  we  have  instances  in  which  the  gravestone  is 
directly  identified  with  the  soul  (nephesh)  of  the  deceased.2 
This  explains  some  texts  which  have  puzzled  the  expositors. 
These  texts  speak  of  the  soul  as  that  which  defiles  the  per- 
son who  touches  a  corpse  (Num.  5:2;  6:6;  19  : 13).  If 
the  soul  has  left  the  body  we  do  not  see  how  it  can  defile. 
But  in  Hebrew  thought  the  soul  still  has  its  abode  in  the 
body,  at  least  until  the  latter  has  been  deposited  in  the 
tomb.  Then  it  dwells  in  the  tomb,  for  the  touch  of  a  grave 
makes  one  taboo  just  as  surely  as  the  touch  of  a  corpse. 
Why  the  contact  should  produce  defilement  we  shall  inquire 

1  Ethnological  parallels  are  numerous. 

2  Lods,  La  Croyance  a  la  vie  future  et  le  culte  des  Marts  dans  VAn- 
tiquite  Israelite,  p.  62. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  31 

presently.  What  now  interests  us  is  that  the  soul  resides 
in  the  pillar  just  as  any  other  divinity  resides  in  the  visible 
object  which  marks  his  sanctuary.1 

The  continued  existence  and  the  superhuman  knowledge 
of  the  souls  of  the  dead  is  implied  in  the  practice  of  con- 
sulting the  spirits.  The  classic  example  is  that  of  Saul  and 
the  witch  of  Endor.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the 
narrator  believed  in  the  reality  of  the  apparition.  The  most 
significant  thing  is  that  the  necromancer  calls  the  ghost  a 
god  (I  Sam.  28  : 13).  The  wide  prevalence  of  spiritistic 
arts  in  Israel  down  to  a  late  period  is  proved  by  the  polemic 
of  the  prophets  (Isaiah  8  : 19)  as  well  as  by  legal  prohibi- 
tions in  late  as  well  as  early  codes  (Ex.  22 : 17;  Deut.  18 : 10/.; 
Lev.  20  : 27).  The  reason  for  the  opposition  is  that  the 
necromancer  was  priest  or  priestess  of  a  religion  which  Yah- 
weh  would  not  tolerate;  that  is,  they  worshipped  the  spirits. 

As  has  often  been  pointed  out,  the  mourning  customs  of 
the  Jews  are  survivals  from  the  animistic  stage.  Besides 
the  natural  expressions  of  grief,  such  as  weeping  and  cry- 
ing out,  we  read  of  fasting,  shaving  the  head  or  some  por- 
tion of  it,  tattooing  or  cutting  incisions  in  the  flesh,  rend- 
ing the  clothes,  and  strewing  ashes  or  earth  on  the  head. 
The  majority  of  these  are  religious  customs.  The  strew- 
ing of  earth  on  the  head  is  a  sign  of  consecration,  the  earth 
being  taken  from  a  sanctuary — in  this  case  the  burial- 
place.  The  ashes  are  in  like  manner  sacred,  bringing  the 
mourner  into  communion  with  the  departed,  probably  being 
taken  from  a  sacrifice  (cf.  Jer.  6  : 26).  Mourning  garments 
— sackcloth  is  usually  associated  with  the  ashes  of  mourn- 
ing— are  to  be  classed  with  the  special  robes  which  the 
worshippers  donned  at  a  religious  ceremony.  The  rending 
of  the  clothes  had  some  reference  to  the  taboo  imposed  by 
the  presence  of  a  corpse. 

1  Jaussen  points  out  that  a  stele  in  one  of  the  Nabatsean  inscriptions 
is  distinctly  said  to  be  the  residence  of  the  god  (Mission  Arch£ologique, 
p.  416).  The  gigantic  monoliths  at  Axum,  in  Abyssinia,  are  said  to  be 
called  "souls,"  like  the  Phoenician  monuments  spoken  of  above  (Ar- 
chiv  fur  Religionswissenschaft,  XI,  p.  567). 


32  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Some  of  these  customs  might  be  interpreted  in  such  a 
way  as  not  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  Yahweh  religion,  but 
some  of  them,  as  we  have  seen,  were  strictly  forbidden. 
The  Deuteronomist  prohibits  tattooing  and  shaving  the 
head:  "You  shall  not  cut  yourselves  nor  make  any  bald- 
ness between  your  eyes  for  the  dead"  (Deut.  14  : 1).  The 
priestly  writer  in  repeating  these  prohibitions  brings  the  for- 
bidden practices  into  connection  with  enchantment  and  au- 
gury (Lev.  19  : 26-28)  and  is  especially  stringent  with  the 
priests  (21  : 1-6).  The  Deuteronomist  takes  pains  to  have 
the  faithful  Israelite  declare  that  he  has  not  given  any 
part  of  the  tithes  to  the  dead  (Deut.  26  : 14),  doubtless 
because  there  was  strong  pressure  exercised  by  common 
custom  to  make  the  offerings  to  the  dead  a  first  charge  on 
the  sacred  things.  The  desire  of  the  legislators,  therefore, 
was  to  separate  everything  connected  with  the  worship  of 
Yahweh  from  contact  with  the  dead.  But  since  death  is  a 
universal  human  experience  every  one  at  some  time  or  other 
must  come  into  the  presence  of  a  corpse.  Such  persons  are 
pronounced  by  the  law  ritually  unclean  and  are  not  admitted 
to  the  sanctuary  of  Yahweh  until  purified  by  a  special  rite. 
In  the  case  of  the  high  priest,  in  whom  sanctity  was  most 
important,  a  stricter  regulation  was  enforced  and  he  was  not 
allowed  to  approach  any  dead  body  whatever,  not  even 
that  of  his  father  or  his  mother  (Lev.  21  : 10-13). 

The  fact  that  all  of  this  testimony  is  from  comparatively 
late  documents  only  shows  the  strength  of  the  belief  in  the 
demonic  nature  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  This  belief  has 
left  its  mark  on  the  legislation,  not  only  in  the  prohibitions 
we  have  noted,  but  in  some  positive  regulations.  The  sac- 
rifice of  a  red  cow  enjoined  in  Numbers  (chap.  19)  seems  to 
be  a  sacrifice  to  the  dead  which  has  survived  in  the  ritual 
system  because  it  could  not  be  eradicated.  The  sacrifice 
is  unique  in  the  priestly  system  in  that  it  is  not  offered  at 
the  sanctuary.  The  colour  of  the  animal  and  the  manner  of 
its  offering  remind  us  of  the  sacrifices  brought  to  the  dead 
in  other  religions,  and  the  fact  that  the  man  who  handles 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  33 

the  ashes  is  unclean  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  Fur- 
ther, the  heifer  strangled  near  the^  spot  where  a  man  has 
been  murdered  by  an  unknown  hand  seems  to  be  a  similar 
survival  (Deut.  21  : 1-9).  The  ghost  of  the  dead  man  must 
be  propitiated  lest  he  do  harm  to  the  people  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  burnings  for  the 
kings  of  Judah  (Jer.  34  :  5;  II  Chron.  16  : 14;  21  :  19)  and  of 
Ezekiel's  protest  against  the  burial  of  these  kings  in  imme- 
diate proximity  to  the  temple  (Ezek.  43  : 7).  The  impor- 
tance attached  to  male  offspring  throughout  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  intelligible  if  a  man's  sons  were  the  ones  to  pay 
him  worship  after  his  death.  It  has  even  been  suggested 
that  the  command  to  honour  father  and  mother  has  refer- 
ence primarily  to  the  payment  of  the  funeral  rites.  This, 
however,  is  problematical.  The  patriarchal  family,  which 
we  find  fully  developed  in  Israel,  usually  rests  on  the  relig- 
ious basis  of  ancestor-worship.  What  is  certain  is  that  we 
have  enough  evidence  to  warrant  us  in  saying  that  the  wor- 
ship of  the  dead  existed  in  Israel  throughout  its  history 
and  that  it  dates  back  to  the  time  of  the  wilderness  sojourn.1 

The  nomad  does  not  clearly  distinguish  the  wild  animals 
from  the  spirits  which  in  his  imagination  people  the  desert. 
Traces  of  animal  worship,  therefore,  do  not  surprise  us  when 
we  meet  them  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  serpent  had 
the  reputation  of  superhuman  knowledge,  and  sacrifice  was 
brought  to  a  bronze  serpent  in  the  temple  down  to  the  time 
of  Hezekiah  (II  Kings  18  : 4),  a  striking  example  of  religious 
conservatism.  This  serpent  was  ascribed  to  Moses,  and  our 
narrative  sources  represent  it  to  have  been  a  harmless  talis- 
man by  which  those  bitten  by  serpents  were  healed.  But  it 
is  clear  that  Hezekiah  would  not  have  destroyed  so  innocent 
and  so  venerable  a  monument  had  this  been  all  that  he  be- 

1  The  recollection  of  this  fact  finds  expression  even  in  the  Psalter, 
where  eating  the  sacrifices  of  the  dead  is  brought  into  connection  with 
the  worship  of  Baal-peor  (Psalm  106  :  28).  An  elaborate  discussion 
of  the  whole  subject  will  be  found  in  Lods,  La  Croyance  a  la  vie  future 
et  le  culte  des  Morts  dans  VAntiquite  Israelite,  Paris,  1906. 


34  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

lieved  it  to  be.  It  must  have  been  an  idol  representing  the 
serpent-god,  to  whom  one  might  appeal  for  protection  from 
his  subjects.  A  sanctuary  in  the  vicinity  of  Jerusalem  bore 
the  name  "Serpent's  Stone"  or  "Dragon's  Well"  (I  Kings 
1:9;  Neh.  2  : 13).  Other  direct  evidence  of  the  worship 
of  animals,  except  that  of  the  bull,  which  will  occupy  our 
attention  later,  there  seems  to  be  none.  But  indirect  tes- 
timony is  given  by  the  abhorrence  of  the  Yahweh  religion 
for  "unclean"  animals.  The  reason  for  this  abhorrence  is 
the  fact  that  these  animals  were  associated  with  other  gods 
than  Yahweh.  Probably  they  were  not  only  consecrated 
to  these  divinities  but  were  regarded  as  incarnations  of 
them.  We  have  already  seen  that  down  to  a  late  period 
the  desert  demons  were  worshipped.  These  demons  are 
called  Se'irim,  which  means  goats  (Lev.  17  : 7).  The  divini- 
ties were,  therefore,  wild  goats,  or  goat-like  in  form,  resem- 
bling the  satyrs  of  Greek  mythology.  Egypt,  the  classic 
land  of  animal-worship,  shows  numerous  parallels. 

The  reaction  of  Yahweh-worship  against  these  supersti- 
tions is  itself  an  evidence  that  they  once  prevailed.  Even 
so  late  an  author  as  Origen,  and  one  so  comparatively  en- 
lightened, thought  that  every  animal  is  in  some  manner 
akin  to  a  demon,  and  Plutarch  speaks  of  the  ass  as  an  un- 
clean and  demonic  beast.1  But  demons  are  only  gods  of 
inferior  rank,  or  who  have  been  proscribed  by  more  advanced 
religious  belief.  The  close  connection  of  uncleanness  and 
sanctity  in  ancient  thought  gave  rise  to  the  gentile  opinion 
that  the  Jews  worshipped  an  ass. 

Summing  up  what  has  been  said,  we  may  say  that  the 
early  Hebrews  worshipped  the  spirits  which  they  supposed 
to  animate  trees,  fountains,  and  rocks;  they  reverenced  the 
animals,  also,  or  at  least  some  of  them,  and  they  paid  religious 
adoration  to  the  spirits  of  the  dead  at  the  places  where  they 
were  interred.  Yahweh  was  himself  originally  the  god  of  a 
mountain  or,  according  to  one  account,  of  a  cave  (I  Kings 

1  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  30.    Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  IV,  72.     I  owe 
\   this  citation  to  Kalisch,  Leviticus,  II,  p.  72. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  35 

19 : 9-14).  The  Hebrew  writers  who  have  recorded  these 
evidences  would  doubtless  have  been  glad  to  ignore  them 
had  they  had  less  fidelity  to  tradition.  This  makes  their 
evidence  all  the  more  convincing.  The  survival  of  so  many 
of  these  beliefs  into  the  later  period  shows  what  the  religion 
of  the  nomads  must  have  been. 

It  is  evident  that  the  religious  emotion  which  dictates 
worship  of  these  divinities  must  be  that  of  fear.  The  fear 
of  Yahweh  was,  in  fact,  the  Hebrew  definition  of  religion  down 
to  the  New  TestarnenTperio^  Lal^r~do~cumentlT~ino!ee37 
emphasise  the  love  of  God,  and  there  are  expressions  of  trust 
and  affection  in  the  higher  stages  of  this  religion.  But  the 
nomad  was  moved  more  by  fear  than  by  love.  This  is  true 
"to  the  present  day,  for  the  Palestinian  Arab  still  speaks  of 
a  pious  man  as  one  that  fears  Allah,  and  reverence  for  the 
local  saint  of  which  we  have  spoken  as  the  most  vital  religion 
of  these  people  has  always  behind  it  the  idea  that  he  will  be 
swift  to  avenge  an  insult.  The  oath  by  the  saint,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  inviolate  just  for  this  reason,  and  the  laxity 
in  swearing  by  Allah  is  due  to  the  belief  that  he  is  a  God 
of  mercy  who  will  not  be  so  particular.1  It  is  not  without 
reason  then  that  Yahweh  is  called  the  Fear  of  Isaac,  and 
that  Jacob  swears  by  him  under  that  name  (Gen.  31 : 42  and 
53). 

Fear  of  the  gods  expresses  itself  in  the  ascription  to  them 
of  a  quality  for  which  we  have  no  good  name  in  English,  but 
for  which  we  may  provisionally  use  the  word  sacredness. 
The  gods,  as  inhabitants  of  a  different  sphere  from  that  in 
which  men  are  found,  or  rather  as  having  a  different  nature 
from  that  of  men,  possess  in  themselves  this  uncanny  quality 
— to  call  it  holiness,  as  is  so  often  done,  is  misleading,  for  to 
us  this  implies  moral  perfection.  On  account  of  this  mys- 
terious quality  it  is  dangerous  to  approach  the  divinity  with- 
out certain  precautions;  to  handle  what  belongs  to  him  is 
also  dangerous.  To  protect  oneself  from  this  dangerous 
power  is  one  object  of  religious  rites.  But  to  ward  off  the 
1  Jaussen,  Coutumes,  p.  292. 


36  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

baleful  influence  of  one  god  we  may  put  ourselves  under  the 
protection  of  another.  The  use  of  charms  and  spells  is 
intended  to  enlist  a  divine  protector.  The  earliest  orna- 
ments used  by  men  were  not  designed  to  make  the  person 
attractive;  they  were  amulets  in  which  supernatural  power 
resided.  In  other  words,  sacredness  has  two  sides  to  it;  it 
may  be  either  helpful  or  harmful.  When  Aaron  asked  for  the 
earrings  of  the  Israelites  and  made  them  into  an  idol  of 
Yahweh,  he  was  moved  by  the  reflection  that  these  objects 
were  already  sacred,  that  is,  they  had  already  something  of 
divinity  in  them.  They  were  therefore  fit  material  for  his 
purpose  (Ex.  32  :  2-4).  Micah  made  an  image  out  of  some 
of  the  silver  which  he  had  taken  from  his  mother  because 
she  had  laid  a  curse  upon  it,  that  is,  she  had  made  it  taboo 
by  dedicating  it  to  the  divinity,  and  it  was  thus  withdrawn 
from  secular  use  (Judges  17: 1-5).  Gideon  in  like  manner 
used  the  earrings  of  the  Midianites  for  an  image  of  Yahweh 
(Judges  8 :  25-27).  In  this  case  the  earrings  were  probably 
originally  devoted  to  another  god.  But  if  so,  the  way  to 
render  them  innocuous  was  to  dedicate  them  to  Yahweh, 
for  the  sacredness  imparted  by  the  more  powerful  God  would 
overcome  that  of  the  weaker.  Here  is  the  secret  of  the 
whole  opposition  of  clean  and  unclean  which  is  so  prominent 
in  the  ritual  of  the  Hebrews,  and  which  survives  in  orthodox 
Judaism  to  the  present  day.  The  sacredness  of  Yahweh  is 
strongly  opposed  to  the  sacredness  of  another  divinity;  this 
therefore  becomes  uncleanness  for  the  Yahweh  religion.  It 
is  probable  that  we  have  here  the  reason  why  David's  music 
was  expected  to  cure  Saul's  madness.  Music  has  in  it  some- 
thing of  divine  power;  the  musician  may,  in  fact,  be  inspired 
by  Yahweh,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  the  early  prophets.  He 
is  therefore  able  to  drive  away  the  evil  demon,  who  is  the 
cause  of  madness.  Plato  believed  that  the  sacred  dance 
and  music  would  cure  those  who  were  possessed.1 

This  idea  of  sacredness  as  an  uncanny  power  runs  through 
the  whole  history  of  Hebrew  religion.    A  curious  illustration 
1  Laws,  VII,  790,  cited  by  Rohde,  Psyche,  p.  336. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  37 

is  found  in  a  late  law  (late  in  the  literary  formulation,  that  is), 
which  must  be  a  survival.  In  the  ordeal  for  the  woman  sus- 
pected of  adultery  it  is  commanded  that  the  accused  drink 
of  a  cup  which  contains  sacred  water  (probably  from  a 
sacred  spring)  in  which  some  of  the  dust  from  the  floor  of 
the  sanctuary  has  been  dissolved  as  well  as  the  ink  in  which 
the  curse  was  written.  If  she  is  guilty  it  will  punish  her 
(cause  her  to  miscarry),  but  if  she  is  innocent  it  will  not 
harm  her  (Num.  5  : 11-31).  The  sacred  water,  reinforced 
by  the  sacred  dust  and  the  sacred  formula,  has  supernatural 
power  to  discover  and  punish  guilt.  The  dust  of  the  sanc- 
tuary has  the  same  uncanny  power  that  we  have  discovered 
in  dust  from  a  grave,  as  believed  by  the  Bedawin  down  to 
the  present  day.  The  whole  theory  of  ordeals,  which  plays 
so  prominent  a  part  in  the  history  of  religion,  is  based  on  this 
sacredness  of  material  that  belongs  to  a  god  or  demon.1 

This  matter  of  exorcism  and  magic  is  important  because, 
crude  as  it  seems  to  us,  it  opened  the  way  to  a  higher  con- 
ception of  religion.  The  idea  that  we  may  secure  the  aid 
of  the  friendly  divinity  by  an  alliance  or  covenant  is  on  this 
side  of  the  line  which  divides  magic  and  religion.  This  idea 
of  alliance  or  covenant  became  fundamental  in  the  religion 
of  Israel  and  has  become  one  of  the  leading  ideas  in  Chris- 
tianity also.  What  now  interests  us  is  that  it  originated 
in  the  nomadic  stage.  Among  the  nomads  the  relations 
of  man  and  man  are  regulated  by  covenant.  Clans  are,  in 
fact,  made  by  covenants  between  smaller  groups,  and  clans 
coalesce  into  tribes  by  the  same  process.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  covenant  is  made  binding  by  making  the  local 
divinity  a  party  to  it.  This  divinity,  thus  brought  into  the 
compact,  became  not  only  the  guardian  of  the  oath,  but  a 
member  of  the  clan.  And  as  the  earliest  covenants  were 
blood  covenants,  the  divinity  was  made  a  blood-brother  by 
the  same  sort  of  rite  with  the  one  used  when  two  men  made 
an  alliance. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  must  explain  the  rite  of 
1  C/.,  further,  Goldziher,  Muhammedanische  Studien,  II,  p.  260. 


38  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

circumcision,  which  doubtless  goes  back  to  ancient  times. 
This  rite  was  practised  in  Egypt,  as  we  know,  and  is  still 
observed  by  almost  all  African  tribes,  by  the  Australians, 
and  in  parts  of  North  and  South  America.  Among~tlie"most 
primitive  tribes  it  seems  to  be  a  rite  of  initiation.  The  boys 
of  the  tribe  are  not  thought  to  attain  manhood  until  they 
have  undergone  this  operation,  which  is  usually  performed  at 
puberty,  and  which  admits  them  to  full  membership  in  the 
tribe,  releasing  them  from  the  control  of  their  mothers.  The 
admission  is  by  a  blood  covenant,  the  blood  which  flows  at 
^tlie  operation  being  applied  to  thelnen  of  the  tribe,  and  their 
blood  at  the  same  time  being  caused  to  flow  over  the  initi- 
ates. The  account  of  the  circumcision  of  Moses'  son,  already 
considered,  shows  the  power  of  the  blood,  and,  as  the  divinity 
is  made  a  party  to  all  the  solemnities  of  the  tribe,  we  see  how 
circumcision  was  not  only  the  sign  but  the  seal  of  the  cov- 
enant. It  is,  in  fact,  so  regarded  in  the  latest  documents. 
As  for  the  bodily  organ  which  was  operated  upon,  we  must 
remember  the  importance  of  reproduction  in  all  early  so- 
cieties, where  the  life  of  the  clan  depends  upon  the  number 
of  fighting  men.  Because  of  the  importance  of  having 
many  sons  born  to  the  clan,  the  whole  sexual  life  was  under 
the  protection  of  the  divinity,  and  entrance  on  the  marriage- 
able age  was  the  most  important  event  in  the  life  of  the 
individual.  In  the  later  stages  of  Hebrew  society  circum- 
cision was  performed  in  infancy,  but  there  are  traces  of  the 
earlier  custom  which  connected  it  with  the  age  of  puberty. 

Since  this  rite  brought  the  boy  into  covenant  with  the 
clan  and  with  the  clan-god,  we  understand  why  it  is  called 
a  purification  and  why  the  uncircumcised  are  called  the 
unclean.  All  tribal  marks  and  mutilations  seem  to  be  re- 
ligious in  their  origin,  and  this  could  be  no  exception.  If 
it  be  objected  that  we  have  no  evidence  that  human  blood 
was  ever  used  to  bring  the  Israelite  into  communion  with 
the  divinity,  we  must  remember  that  in  the  later  stages  of 
this  religion  pains  were  taken  to  ignore  those  features  of 
early  custom  which  had  become  repulsive  to  advancing 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  39 

thought.  If  human  sacrifice  was  practised  in  the  early 
stages — and  that  it  was  admits  of  no  doubt — human  blood 
must  have  been  regarded  as  the  most  potent  means  of  sanc- 
tifying the  covenant.  The  priests  of  Baal  cut  themselves 
with  knives  as  they  danced  about  the  altar,  thus  appealing 
to  the  god  by  the  covenant  relation  which  gave  them  a 
claim  on  him  (1  Kings  18  :  28) ;  and  Hosea  intimates  that  the 
Israelites  also  cut  themselves  at  the  altar  of  Yahweh  (Hosea 
7  : 14,  emended  text).  The  prohibition  of  cutting  oneself  for 
the  dead  is  emphasised  by  the  Deuteronomist  because  such 
mutilations  bring  one  into  communion  with  the  departed. 

These  survivals  show  that  the  use  of  human  blood  to 
ratify  the  covenant  was  not  unknown,  and  we  may  suppose 
that  in  the  prehistoric  stage  circumcision  blood  was  applied 
to  the  altar  or  pillar  which  represented  the  divinity.  In 
our  records  animal  blood  has  taken  the  place  of  human 
blood,  and  we  find  the  covenant  ratified  by  sacrifice  of  an 
animal.  The  earliest  account  of  the  covenant  made  be- 
tween Israel  and  Yahweh  tells  us  that  the  blood  was  sprinkled 
on  the  altar  (representing  Yahweh)  and  on  the  people. 
The  blood  cements  the  union;  the  parties  become  of  one 
blood  (Ex.  24  :  6-8).  To  the  present  day  some  of  the  Arabs 
give  solemn  sanction  to  a  betrothal  by  a  blood  covenant: 
"  When  an  Arab  has  secured  a  bride  for  his  son  by  a  promise 
from  the  young  woman's  father,  he  takes  a  sheep  or  goat 
to  the  tent  and  slays  the  animal  there,  sprinkling  a  little  of 
the  blood  on  the  fiancee.  She  is  thereby  irrevocably  prom- 
ised to  the  young  man.  She  and  all  her  kin  are  bound  by 
the  contract."  l 

Circumcision,  covenant  rites,  and  sacrifice,  then,  go  back 
to  the  nomadic  period  of  Israel's  history.  And  the  com- 
munion meal  is  naturally  a  part  of  the  sacrificial  rite.  When 
the  blood  had  ratified  or  renewed  the  covenant  the  flesh  of 
the  animal  was  eaten  by  the  members  of  the  clan.  It  is 
well  known  that  among  the  Arabs  to  this  day  eating  with  a 
man  establishes  peace  with  him,  so  that  you  are  safe  from 
1  Jaussen,  Coutumes,  p.  345. 


40  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

his  hostility  as  long  as  the  food  is  in  your  body.  Jacob  and 
Laban  establish  peace  by  the  common  meal,  to  which  appar- 
ently the  divinity  is  also  invited.  The  covenant  between 
Israel  and  the  Gibeonites  was  ratified  by  the  parties  eating 
together  (Joshua  9  : 14).  Whether  the  Hebrews  ever  con- 
ceived the  sacrifice  as  the  slaying  of  a  divine  animal  in  order 
that  his  life  might  strengthen  the  members  of  the  clan  by 
entering  into  them  cannot  be  definitely  made  out.  Such  a 
conception  does  not  seem  to  have  been  entertained  in  the 
historic  period. 

A  sacrifice  which  differs  in  some  respects  from  the  others 
adopted  in  the  later  ritual  is  the  Passover,  and  we  may 
perhaps  assume  that  this  goes  back  to  nomadic  times. 
What  was  peculiar  about  it  was  its  performance  at  the  home 
instead  of  at  a  sanctuary.  The  blood,  instead  of  being 
poured  upon  an  altar,  was  smeared  on  the  door-posts  and 
lintel,  and  it  was  required  that  the  whole  flesh  should  be 
consumed  before  morning.  This  seems  to  be  the  original 
clan  sacrifice.  The  unity  of  the  group  is  shown  by  their 
gathering  in  one  house.  In  the  nomad  period  the  social 
unit  is  the  circle  of  tents  pitched  at  one  spot,  and  all  the 
members  of  the  group  easily  find  accommodation  in  the  tent 
of  the  sheikh.  The  smearing  of  the  blood  on  the  tent-pole 
(the  earliest  method)  serves  a  double  purpose:  it  keeps  off 
the  demons  which  prowl  around,  and  which  are  especially 
active  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year;  at  the  same  time  it 
brings  the  clan  into  renewed  covenant  with  the  divinity. 
The  fact  that  the  spring  was  the  season  for  this  festival 
makes  us  associate  it  with  present  Arab  custom.  The  lamb 
which  was  slain  was  probably  the  first  one  yeaned  that  sea- 
son. For  this  lamb  is  still  considered  sacred,  and  must  be 
sacrificed  to  a  saint.1 

The  Hebrew  authors  found  a  historic  occasion  for  the 

Passover  in  the  slaying  of  the  first-born  in  Egypt,  but  the 

documents  themselves  allow  us  to  discover  that  the  festival 

is  older  than  the  exodus.     Moses  asks  Pharaoh  that  the 

1  Jaussen,  Coutumes,  p.  366. 


NOMADIC   RELIGION  41 

people  may  go  three  days'  journey  into  the  wilderness  to 
observe  the  feast  to  Yahweh.  The  natural  supposition  is 
that  this  was  the  season  when  such  a  sacrifice  should  be 
observed,  and  that  the  God  would  be  angry  if  it  was  omitted. 
The  festival  is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  some  known  and  estab- 
lished thing.  In  the  mind  of  the  earliest  writer,  therefore, 
the  exodus  was  demanded  in  order  that  the  Passover  might 
be  observed.  When  Pharaoh  refused  his  assent,  Yahweh 
took  the  first-born  of  the  Egyptians  as  a  substitute  for  the 
sacrifices  which  were  wrongfully  withheld.  The  fact  that 
after  the  settlement  in  Canaan  the  Passover  was  amalga- 
mated with  another  festival,  that  of  unleavened  bread,  does 
not  now  concern  us. 

The  covenant  sacrifice  implies  that  the  god  becomes  a 
member  of  the  clan.  The  numerous  Semitic  proper  names 
which  affirm  that  the  divinity  is  a  kinsman  become  intelligible 
when  we  bear  this  in  mind.  It  is  not  always  as  father  that 
he  is  presented;  he  is  often  brother  or  uncle  of  the  clansman. 
Possibly  this  points  to  a  time  when  the  father  was  of  less 
importance  to  the  child  than  the  uncle  or  brother.1  The 
totemistic  clan,  that  is,  the  one  in  which  gods,  men,  and 
animals  are  all  kinsmen,  is  matriarchal,  or,  perhaps  better, 
matrilinear.  The  women  of  the  clan  do  not  leave  their 
kinsmen  to  join  the  group  to  which  the  husband  belongs,  but 
remain  among  their  own  people,  receiving  visits  from  the 
man  from  time  to  time,  but  keeping  the  children  for  their 
own  group.  The  greater  importance  of  the  uncle  or  brother 
in  such  a  society  is  evident.  Although  there  is  no  clear  and 
decisive  evidence  that  such  a  system  ever  prevailed  among 
the  Hebrews,  there  are  some  facts  which  find  their  best 
explanation  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  Hebrews,  like  so 
many  other  peoples,  have  passed  through  the  totemistic 
stage.  Thus  the  mother  is  the  one  who  names  the  child  in 
many  cases  (Gen.  4 : 25;  16 : 11 ;  29 : 32;  30 : 24;  I  Sam.  1 : 20). 
This  is  hardly  conceivable  in  a  strictly  patriarchal  society. 

1  The  subject  is  considered  at  length  by  W.  Robertson  Smith,  Re- 
ligion of  the  Semites,  Lecture  II. 


42  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

There  are  also  some  cases  of  exogamous  marriage  which  look 
in  the  same  direction  (Samson,  Judges  14,  and  Gideon, 
Judges  8  :  31).  Animal  proper. names  might  be  adduced  as 
further  arguments.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  at  the  entrance 
into  Canaan  the  Hebrews  had  left  the  totemistic  system 
behind. 

At  what  point  of  time  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
entered  the  religion  of  Israel  is  impossible  to  determine. 
Later  writers  have  much  to  say  in  opposition  to  this  worship, 
but  it  is  possible  that  they  have  in  mind  rites  that  were  in- 
troduced from  Assyria  or  Babylon  (Deut.  17  : 3).  It  does 
not  seem  violent,  however,  to  suppose  that  the  moon  was 
an  object  of  adoration  in  the  nomadic  period.  The  new 
moon  was  a  festival  from  early  times,  and  among  the  Arabs 
the  new  moon  is  still  greeted  with  song  or  prayer  at  its  ap- 
pearing.1 The  fact  that  the  Sabbath  is  often  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  new  moon  leads  us  to  suspect  that  it 
also  was  a  lunar  festival.  Sun-worship  was  common  in  all 
the  more  advanced  religions  of  western  Asia,  and  the  story 
of  Samson  indicates  that  it  had  some  hold  among  the  Is- 
raelites, but  whether  this  was  true  in  the  nomadic  stage  is 
not  clear. 

On  another  point  we  are  compelled  to  admit  our  igno- 
rance. This  is  whether  the  early  Hebrews  had  goddesses 
as  well  as  gods.  The  other  Semites  paid  great  attention 
to  a  goddess  of  fertility  whom  the  Babylonians  called  Ish- 
tar,  the  Canaanites  Astarte.  Her  worship  in  Israel  in  the 
historic  period  is  well  attested,  but  whether  it  is  earlier  is 
not  known.  The  goddess  of  fertility  would  naturally  flour- 
ish in  the  cultivated  country,  but  the  phenomena  of  the 
oases  may  well  have  associated  her  with  certain  spots  in 
the  desert  as  well.  It  has  recently  been  argued  with  much 
ability  that  a  goddess  of  the  oases,  perhaps  embodied  in 
the  palm-tree,  was  the  original  divinity  of  the  Semites.2 

^aussen,  Coutumes,  p.  294;    Doughty,  Travels  in  Arabia  Deserta, 
I,  366,  455. 
2  Barton,  A  Study  of  Semitic  Origins. 


NOMADIC  RELIGION  43 

We  are  on  more  certain  ground  when  we  say  that  the 
most  fundamental  social  institution  of  the  nomadic  life  is 
blood-revenge.  The  solidarity  of  the  clan  brings  with  it 
the  duty  of  revenge.  "Our  blood  has  been  spilled,"  they 
say,  when  any  member  of  the  group  has  been  injured  or 
slain.  If  the  murderer  cannot  be  identified,  some  member 
of  his  clan  must  pay  the  penalty.  The  consequence  is  that 
some  tribes  are  at  constant  feud.  The  logic  of  the  system 
is  well  set  forth  by  the  woman  of  Tekoah,  who  complains 
that  the  whole  family  will  be  exterminated  by  strict  ad- 
herence to  custom  (II  Sam.  14  :  4-11).  What  now  concerns 
us  is  that  the  institution  is  religious  because  the  god  is  a 
member  of  the  clan,  and  the  duty  of  blood-revenge  devolves 
upon  him  as  well  as  upon  the  human  kinsmen.  Where 
there  is  no  human  avenger  the  god  will  assume  the  obliga- 
tion. In  case  of  murder  within  the  clan  the  punishment  is 
not  death  but  banishment,  which,  as  we  see  in  Cain,  is  worse 
than  death.  All  that  now  concerns  us  is  that  the  divinity 
protects  the  blood,  and  so  long  as  it  is  unavenged  it  cries 
to  him  from  the  ground.  To  the  latest  times  the  Israelites 
called  Yahweh  their  go'el,  that  is  to  say,  the  next  of  kin,  on 
whom  the  duty  of  revenge  devolves.  The  oft-quoted  pas- 
sage, "Whoso  sheds  man's  blood  by  man  shall  his  blood  be 
shed/*  is  the  expression  of  clan  custom,  and  in  immediate 
connection  with  it  Yahweh  declares  that  he  will  avenge  if 
man  does  not:  "Surely  your  blood  will  I  require;  at  the 
hand  of  every  beast  will  I  require  it  and  at  the  hand  of 
man"  (Gen.  9:4).  Joseph's  brothers  felt  that  the  hand  of 
God  was  avenging  their  treatment  of  their  brother  when 
their  lives  were  threatened  in  Egypt  (Gen.  42  : 22).  Sol- 
omon felt  himself  justified  in  slaying  Joab  even  at  the  altar, 
because  as  the  instrument  of  Yahweh  he  was  thus  return- 
ing the  man's  blood-guilt  on  his  own  head  (I  Kings  2  :  32), 
and  Elijah  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  Yahweh  would 
require  the  blood  of  Naboth  from  Ahab  (I  Kings  21  :  19). 
Even  in  the  nomadic  stage,  therefore,  Yahweh  was  a  God  of 
justice,  the  protector  of  the  clansman's  life. 


44  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

His  attitude  toward  strangers,  however,  was  that  of  a 
thorough  partisan.  The  nomad  is  at  perpetual  war  with 
his  neighbours,  and  raids  upon  the  neighbouring  tribes  are 
the  regular  way  by  which  the  means  of  subsistence  are  ob- 
tained. The  divinity  stood  in  such  close  relations  with  the 
clan  that  he  took  part  in  their  wars.  This  is  illustrated  by 
Mesha,  who  tells  us  that  Chemosh  delighted  in  the  victories 
of  his  people.  A  tribe  might  pay  its  devotion  at  any  of 
the  shrines  which  lay  near  the  route  of  its  wanderings,  but 
its  own  tutelary  divinity  stood  in  closer  relation  to  it  than 
any  of  the  others.  To  secure  his  presence  on  their  cam- 
paigns it  was  natural  to  carry  the  visible  object  in  which 
he  was  supposed  to  reside.  Hebrew  tradition  speaks  of  a 
tent  which  accompanied  the  people  in  their  wanderings, 
and  also  of  an  ark  or  chest  which  secured  the  presence  of 
the  divinity.  This  tradition  speaks  of  two  stones  placed 
in  the  ark,  and  we  are  inclined  to  suppose  that  these  were 
sacred  stones,  bethels  in  which  the  God  had  his  residence. 

Recently  it  has  been  argued  that  the  ark  was  a  seat  or 
throne  on  which  the  divinity  was  invisibly  present,  and 
parallels  are  adduced  from  other  religions.  But  it  seems 
pretty  clear  that  the  Hebrew  word  means  box  or  chest. 
It  seems  more  probable,  also,  that  the  nomads  would  carry 
a  fetish  than  that  they  would  conceive  of  the  deity  as  in- 
visibly present.  In  any  case  the  ark  was  so  closely  identi- 
fied with  Yahweh  that  its  presence  secured  his  presence. 
Moses  invoked  it  in  the  morning  with  the  words:  "Rise, 
Yahweh,  and  let  thine  enemies  be  scattered,  and  let  thy 
haters  flee  before  thee!"  And  when  it  rested  at  night  he 
said:  "Return,  Yahweh,  to  the  myriad  thousands  of  Israel" 
(Num.  10  :35).  Because  the  ark  secured  the  presence  of 
Yahweh  the  Israelites  carried  it  into  battle  against  the 
Philistines,  and  the  Philistines  themselves,  when  they  heard 
of  its  presence,  said:  "God  has  come  into  the  camp"  (I 
Sam.  4:7).  David,  in  dancing  before  the  ark,  danced  be- 
fore Yahweh  (II  Sam.  6  : 5  and  16).  All  these  examples 
are  from  the  later  period,  and  it  is  not  certain  that  either 


NOMADIC    RELIGION  45 

ark  or  tent  actually  existed  in  the  nomadic  stage,  but  at 
least  there  is  nothing  improbable  in  supposing  that  one  or 
the  other  dates  from  that  time.  Egyptian  influence  is 
sometimes  assumed  here  as  elsewhere,  and  it  is  true  that  in 
Egypt  the  gods  were  carried  about  in  chests,  though  more 
often  in  boats.  It  is  precarious,  therefore,  to  assume  Egyp- 
tian influence.  Portable  gods  are  mentioned  in  the  story 
of  Rachel's  stealing  the  teraphim  of  her  father  (Gen.  31  : 19). 
Fragmentary  as  our  information  is,  we  have  been  able 
to  make  out  a  fairly  good  outline  of  what  Israel  believed  in 
the  nomadic  period.  How  the  people  advanced  from  this 
rudimentary  stage  we  have  now  to  discover. 


CHAPTER  III 
MOSES   AND   HIS  WORK 

PRIESTLY  tradition  makes  Moses  the  giver  of  the  Law 
and  therefore  the  founder  of  the  religious  institutions  of 
Judaism.  Deuteronomy  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Moses  the 
statutes  and  ordinances  which  it  wishes  to  see  observed  in 
Israel.  The  older  narratives  ascribe  to  the  same  leader  a 
code  of  civil  regulations  or  at  least  a  decalogue  of  commands 
given  by  his  mouth  at  Horeb  or  Sinai,  as  the  case  may  be. 
All  that  we  can  with  probability  conclude  from  this  stream 
of  tradition  is  that  a  man  named  Moses  had  a  marked  in- 
fluence on  the  religious  development  of  early  Israel.  That 
he  was  not  a  legislator  in  the  later  sense  of  the  word  seems 
obvious.  For  in  the  first  place  the  Bedawy  tolerates  no 
statutes.  What  regulates  his  relations  with  his  fellows  is 
tribal  custom.  And  that  tribal  custom  prevailed  in  Israel 
as  late  as  the  time  of  David  is  shown  by  the  protest  of 
Tamar  against  her  brother's  violence.  She  appeals  to  no 
law;  all  she  says  is  that  it  is  not  so  done  in  Israel  (II  Sam. 
13  : 12).  This  and  other  cases  show  that  no  authoritative 
code  was  recognised  in  the  earlier  period.  Not  even  a 
decalogue  is  appealed  to  by  the  prophets  in  their  arraign- 
ment of  Israel  for  its  sins.  One  has  only  to  reflect  on  the 
impressive  use  which  these  preachers  might  have  made  of 
an  ethical  decalogue,  divinely  given  (if  they  had  known  of 
such  a  decalogue),  in  order  to  realise  that  no  such  decalogue 
had  yet  been  promulgated.  To  this  we  may  add  that  the 
character  of  the  earliest  code  ascribed  to  Moses  forbids  us 
to  suppose  it  to  have  been  given  in  the  desert.  To  impose 
a  code  intended  for  an  agricultural  people  on  tribes  not  yet 
in  possession  of  a  cultivable  country  would  have  been  both 

46 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  47 

impracticable  and  irrational.  Moreover — and  this  is  the 
most  convincing  of  all  the  considerations  that  present  them- 
selves— the  earlier  prophets  did  not  believe  that  a  ritual 
law  had  been  given  in  the  desert.  They,  in  fact,  categor- 
ically deny  that  sacrifice  was  either  commanded  or  offered 
in  the  wilderness  (Amos  5  : 25;  Isaiah  1  : 11-15).  Jere- 
miah declares  that  Yahweh  had  given  no  directions  con- 
cerning sacrifice  or  offering,  though  he  admits  that  Israel 
had  been  charged  with  the  duty  of  obedience  to  its  divinely 
sent  teachers  (Jer.  7  : 22). 

These  prophets  did  not  deny  that  Moses  had  existed; 
much  less  did  they  deny  that  there  had  been  a  great  de- 
liverance at  the  beginning  of  Israel's  history.  It  is  assumed 
by  all  the  Old  Testament  writers  that  there  had  been  such 
a  deliverance.  Amos  says:  "I  brought  you  up  from  the 
land  of  Egypt  and  led  you  forty  years  in  the  wilderness  to 
possess  the  land  of  the  Amorites."  Even  more  striking  is 
the  declaration:  "Hear  the  word  that  Yahweh  has  spoken 
to  you,  O  sons  of  Israel;  against  the  whole  family  that  I 
brought  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  saying:  You  only  have  I 
known  of  all  the  families  of  the  earth;  therefore  will  I  visit 
upon  you  all  your  iniquities"  (Amos  2  : 10;  3  :!/.)•  Hosea 
alludes  to  the  exodus  a  number  of  times  and  says  specifi- 
cally :  "  When  Israel  was  a  child  then  I  loved  him,  and  called 
my  son  out  of  Egypt."  And  in  another  passage  the  prophet 
declares  that  the  relation  between  Yahweh  and  Israel  was 
constituted  at  the  time  of  the  exodus  (Hosea  11  : 1;  12  : 10; 
cf.  2  :  17;  9  :  3).  He  adds  that  it  was  by  a  prophet  that 
Yahweh  brought  his  people  out  of  Egypt  and  by  a  prophet 
that  he  guarded  them  (12  : 14). 

While  the  literature  outside  the  Pentateuch  is  thus  aware 
of  the  importance  of  the  exodus,  it  is  to  the  Pentateuch  it- 
self that  we  must  look  if  we  are  to  get  an  idea  of  the  place 
which  Moses  had  in  the  thought  of  the  people  at  all  stages 
of  their  history.  The  extreme  complexity  of  the  critical 
problem  with  reference  to  these  books  must  not  prevent 
our  attempt  to  get  an  historical  view.  The  first  thing  that 


45  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

impresses  us  is  that  the  documents  here  united  agree  in 
ascribing  to  Moses  the  foundation  of  Israel's  religion  and  of 
Israel's  nationality.  One  writer  conceives  of  him  as  civil 
ruler;  another  describes  him  as  the  great  liberator;  a  third 
emphasises  his  magical  power  as  far  superior  to  what  Egypt 
could  show.  Still  another  thinks  of  him  as  the  minister  of 
the  oracle  and  declarer  of  the  will  of  Yahweh.  Finally,  he 
becomes  the  inaugurator  of  the  priesthood  and  the  origina- 
tor of  the  theocracy.  Various  as  these  views  are,  they 
testify  unanimously  to  the  greatness  of  the  man  whom  they 
glorify.  They  create  a  considerable  probability,  therefore, 
that  such  a  man  once  existed  and  that  he  did  an  important 
work  for  Israel.  What  that  work  was,  however,  is  not  so 
easy  to  define.  Its  historic  basis  must  be  found  in  the 
sojourn  in  Egypt. 

Reconstructing  the  oldest  narrative,  we  may  present  the 
case  somewhat  as  follows:  In  the  course  of  their  migra- 
tions, probably  driven  by  famine,  one  or  more  of  the  clans 
which  sojourned  in  the  desert  south  of  Canaan  took  refuge 
in  the  border-land  of  Egypt.  Here  they  kept  their  flocks 
in  the  ancestral  manner  in  the  district  called  Goshen.  The 
friendly  relations  which  at  first  existed  between  them  and 
the  Egyptians  became  strained  when  the  Pharaoh  tried  to 
force  them  to  labour  for  him  (as  did  his  other  subjects)  on 
his  great  public  works.  One  of  their  own  number  aroused 
the  enmity  of  the  king  and  was  forced  to  flee  the  country. 
Finding  a  refuge  among  the  tribes  to  the  east  of  the  Red 
Sea,  he  was  adopted  into  one  of  them  and  married  the 
daughter  of  the  priest  of  the  local  divinity.  Religious  by 
temperament,  and  brooding  over  the  misfortunes  of  his 
brothers  in  Egypt,  he  invoked  the  aid  of  this  divinity  on 
behalf  of  these  kinsmen.  One  day,  approaching  a  sacred 
tree  or  thicket,  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  God  calling  him 
and  warning  him  of  the  sanctity  of  the  place.  Then  came 
the  wished-for  promise  of  aid.  The  God  commanded  him 
to  lead  his  people  from  Egypt  to  this  sacred  spot  that  there 
they  might  pay  him  worship  (Ex.  3  : 1-12). 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  49 

The  sequel  of  the  account  tells  how  Moses,  in  order  to 
assure  himself  of  the  genuineness  of  the  revelation,  asked 
the  name  of  the  divinity,  and  the  name  Yahweh  was  re- 
vealed to  him  (Ex.  3  : 13-18).  There  is  here  a  conflict  in 
the  narrative,  for  the  new  name  would  be  that  of  a  new 
divinity  and  not  that  of  the  god  of  the  fathers.  His  iden- 
tification with  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  is, 
in  fact,  a  theological  attempt  to  carry  the  Yahweh  religion 
back  to  the  time  of  the  patriarchs.  One  of  the  documents 
goes  so  far  as  to  make  the  name  Yahweh  invoked  as  early 
as  the  antediluvian  period.  But  earliest  must  be  the  theory 
that  Moses,  as  the  inaugurator  of  Israel's  religion,  brought 
to  his  people  a  hitherto  unknown  God.  This  is  implied 
also  in  the  account  of  the  covenant  entered  into  after  the 
deliverance,  for  no  such  compact  would  have  been  neces- 
sary had  Yahweh  been  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  from  the 
earliest  times. 

In  accordance  with  the  commission  given  him,  Moses 
went  to  Egypt  and  demanded  of  the  Pharaoh  a  furlough  for 
his  people,  that  they  might  go  three  days'  journey  into  the 
wilderness  and  observe  the  festival  of  this  God.  The  re- 
quest was  the  mildest  that  could  be  framed  and  was  thus 
framed  to  test  the  Pharaoh's  attitude.  It  was  stated  in  a 
way  that  should  have  appealed  to  him.  The  Hebrews 
were  afraid  that,  if  they  neglected  the  festival  which  was 
due  the  divinity,  he  would  visit  his  wrath  upon  them  in  the 
form  of  a  pestilence  (Ex.  5:3).  The  refusal  of  the  king  was 
followed  by  a  contest  between  the  God  of  Moses  and  the 
gods  of  Egypt,  or  between  the  supernatural  power  of  Moses 
and  that  claimed  by  the  Egyptian  magicians.  For  at  the 
revelation  at  the  bush  Moses  had  received  a  magic  staff 
which  enabled  him  to  outdo  the  celebrated  wonders  of  the 
Egyptian  sorcerers.  The  series  of  plagues  by  which  the 
obstinacy  of  the  king  was  broken  culminated  in  the  death 
of  the  first-born  among  the  Egyptians,  the  flight  of  the 
Israelites,  and  the  great  deliverance  at  the  Red  Sea.  What 
basis  in  fact  the  narrative  has  can  no  longer  be  discovered. 


50  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Whatever  took  place  was  interpreted  by  the  people  as  the 
direct  intervention  of  the  new  God  on  their  behalf. 

The  earliest  account  seems  to  have  stated  that  the  people 
journeyed  the  three  days  in  the  wilderness  and  thus  reached 
the  sanctuary  at  which  they  had  come  to  worship.  The 
first  thing  done  here  was  to  make  a  covenant  with  the  God 
who  had  so  signally  favoured  them.  The  account,  now 
imbedded  in  other  matter,  deserves  citation  in  full.  It 
reads  as  follows:  "Then  Jethro,  Moses'  father-in-law,  came 
with  his  [Moses']  wife  and  his  sons  unto  Moses  into  the 
wilderness  where  he  was  encamped  at  the  mount  of 
God;  and  he  said  unto  Moses:  I,  thy  father-in-law,  am  come 
unto  thee.  .  .  .  And  Moses  told  his  father-in-law  all  that 
Yahweh  had  done  unto  Pharaoh  and  to  the  Egyptians  for 
Israel's  sake,  all  the  trouble  that  had  come  upon  them  in 
the  way,  and  how  Yahweh  had  delivered  them.  And  Jethro 
rejoiced  for  all  the  goodness  which  Yahweh  had  done  to 
Israel  in  that  he  had  delivered  them  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  Egyptians.  And  Jethro  said:  Blessed  be  Yahweh  who 
has  delivered  you  out  of  the  hand  of  the  Egyptians  and  out 
of  the  hand  of  Pharaoh.  Now  I  know  that  Yahweh  is 
greater  than  all  gods,  for  exactly  in  that  in  which  they  dealt 
arrogantly  with  you  he  smote  them.  Then  Jethro,  Moses' 
father-in-law,  took  burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings  for 
Yahweh,  and  Aaron  came  and  all  the  elders  of  Israel  and 
ate  bread  with  Moses'  father-in-law  before  the  God."  (Ex. 
18  : 5-12.) 

The  fact  of  a  foreigner's  officiating  at  a  sacrifice  at  which 
Aaron  and  the  elders  of  Israel  are  only  guests  is  so  extraor- 
dinary and  so  much  out  of  harmony  with  later  Hebrew 
thought  that  we  are  compelled  to  see  in  this  account  a  very 
ancient  tradition.  According  to  it  the  chief  men  in  Israel 
are  received  into  covenant  with  Jethro's  God  at  a  sacrificial 
meal.  Moses  is  not  mentioned,  probably  because,  being 
already  in  covenant  with  Yahweh,  he  acted  as  acolyte  for 
his  father-in-law.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  original  account 
he  was  stated  to  be  a  pupil  of  Jethro  at  this  function,  learn- 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  51 

ing  the  ritual  proper  for  the  sacrifice  to  Yahweh.1  In  any 
case  this  narrative  shows  that  Yahweh  was  formally  intro- 
duced to  Israel  by  a  Midianite  priest.  It  is  sometimes  as- 
sumed that  Jethro's  admiration  for  Yahweh's  power  is  ad- 
miration for  the  God  of  Israel.  But  in  that  case  we  should 
expect  him  to  avow  his  conversion  to  this  God  before 
sacrificing  to  him,  and  even  then  he  could  hardly  assume  to 
act  as  priest.  The  only  explanation  is  that  Jethro  was 
gratified  at  the  evidence  of  his  own  God's  superiority  to  all 
the  gods. 

Later  in  the  narrative  we  read  of  the  ratification  of  the 
covenant  between  Yahweh  and  the  people  as  a  whole. 
Here  Moses  acts  as  leader.  After  submitting  to  the  people 
the  question  whether  they  will  obey  the  voice  of  Yahweh, 
and  receiving  their  affirmative  answer,  he  erected  an  altar 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  and  twelve  pillars  (ma^eboth) 
for  the  twelve  tribes.  Then  he  chose  out  the  young  men 
of  the  sons  of  Israel  and  they  offered  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrificed  bullocks  for  peace-offerings.  Then  Moses  took 
half  the  blood  and  poured  it  into  bowls,  the  other  half  he 
sprinkled  on  the  altar;  and  when  the  people  promised,  "all 
that  Yahweh  has  commanded  will  we  do"  he  sprinkled  the 
people  and  said:  "This  is  the  blood  of  the  covenant  which 
Yahweh  has  made  with  you  on  the  basis  of  all  these  com- 
mandments" (Ex.  24  :3-8).  In  the  text  we  have  a  book 
spoken  of.  This  is  because  the  author  supposed  the  earliest 
written  code  to  have  been  given  by  Moses.  The  important 
thing  is  that  the  document  before  us,  like  the  other,  asserts 
that  Moses  became  the  founder  of  Israel's  religion  by  bring- 
ing the  people  into  covenant  with  Yahweh  after  the  deliver- 
ance from  Egypt. 

Another  view  of  Moses  as  founder  of  the  religion  of  Israel 
is  given  by  the  account  of  his  administration  of  the  oracle. 
Jethro  appears  in  his  company  here  also.  In  the  chapter 
from  which  we  have  already  cited  we  read  that  Jethro  was 
astonished  at  the  burden  which  Moses  took  upon  himself  in 
1  As  supposed  by  Gressmann,  Mose,  p.  168. 


52  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

judging  the  people.  He  therefore  counsels  him  to  relieve 
himself  of  part  of  the  labour  by  appointing  judges  to  hear 
the  minor  cases,  reserving  for  himself  the  more  important 
ones,  which  he  shall  decide  by  bringing  them  before  the 
divinity  (Ex.  18  : 13-27).  The  narrative  presupposes  a 
somewhat  permanent  settlement  of  the  people  (probably  at 
Kadesh)  where  they  have  leisure  for  litigation.  Moses  is 
the  arbitrator  between  man  and  man,  but  in  his  attempt  to 
hear  all  the  cases  that  are  brought  before  him  he  is  wasting 
his  strength.  Jethro's  advice  is  twofold:  first,  Moses  should 
have  helpers;  secondly,  he  should  make  use  of  the  oracle  to 
decide  the  more  difficult  cases.  It  is  not  hazardous  to  con- 
jecture that  in  the  earliest  form  of  the  story  Jethro  in- 
structed Moses  not  only  in  the  civil  administration  (indi- 
cated by  the  appointment  of  the  minor  judges)  but  also  in 
the  manner  of  using  the  oracle  of  Yahweh.  For  Jethro,  as 
priest  of  Yahweh,  must  know  how  to  ascertain  the  will  of 
the  God. 

We  can  hardly  doubt  that  Kadesh  was  the  seat  of  an 
oracle,  for  one  of  its  names  was  En  Mishpat  (Fountain  of 
Judgment).  Further,  as  was  said  above,  it  is  not  improbable 
that  its  prerogatives  in  this  respect  are  indicated  by  the 
names  Massa  and  Meribah,  both  of  which  are  located  at  Ka- 
desh. One  name,  Place  of  Testing,  would  indicate  that  the 
ordeal  was  applied  to  those  who  were  brought  into  judgment; 
the  other  name,  Place  of  Litigation,  needs  no  explanation. 
As  the  only  tribunal  to  which  the  nomad  or  half  nomad  sub- 
mits is  that  of  a  divinity,  the  tradition  in  this  case  is  just 
what  we  should  expect. 

According  to  the  earliest  sources  at  our  command,  there- 
fore, Moses  is  not  only  the  deliverer  of  the  people  from 
Egypt;  he  is  the  minister  of  the  oracle,  the  priest  of  the 
sanctuary  at  Kadesh,  and  also  the  civil  ruler  so  far  as  any 
nomad  people  endures  the  yoke  of  a  ruler.  The  sources  fur- 
ther indicate  that  his  position  was  not  secured  without  con- 
flict. At  one  time  he  calls  for  volunteers  in  the  cause  of 
Yahweh,  and  the  young  men  who  rally  to  him  put  to  death 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  53 

their  own  nearest  relatives  in  defence  of  the  Moses  religion 
(Ex.  32  :  25-29;  confirmed  by  Deut.  33  :  9).  The  result  was 
to  organise  the  priestly  guild  of  Levites.  The  protest  of 
Korah  against  the  limitation  of  the  priesthood,  on  the  ground 
that  all  the  people  are  sacred,  is  another  evidence  of  the  con- 
flict waged  against  these  innovations.  The  revolt  of  Dathan 
and  Abiram,  now  read  in  connection  with  that  of  Korah, 
seems  to  have  been  directed  against  the  civil  power  exer- 
cised by  Moses,  for  his  answer  is  that  he  has  not  been 
guilty  of  receiving  bribes  (Num.  16  : 15).  Protest  against 
the  prophetic  assumptions  of  Moses  made  by  Aaron  and 
Miriam  (Num.  12)  is  additional  evidence  of  the  struggle 
which  the  new  religion  had  to  undergo. 

Some  motive  must  have  been  presented  to  the  people  to 
induce  them  to  adopt  a  God  hitherto  unknown.  What  this 
motive  was  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  The  state  of  early 
society  being  a  state  of  war,  the  divinities  are  sought  in 
order  that  they  may  give  their  aid  in  battle.  Yahweh, 
therefore,  is  consistently  presented  to  us  as  a  God  of  war. 
And  since  the  covenant  with  the  God  of  Midian  meant  a 
covenant  with  the  people  of  Midian,  the  fact  would  seem  to 
be  that  Israel  and  Midian  entered  an  alliance  for  defence, 
and  perhaps  also  for  offence,  against  their  enemies.  Midian 
nowhere  appears  in  the  later  history  as  an  ally  of  Israel, 
but  we  read  concerning  the  Kenites  that  they  entered  Ca- 
naan with  Israel.  The  Kenites  were  counted  a  subdivision 
of  Midian,  according  to  some  of  the  documents,  and  Moses* 
father-in-law  or  brother-in-law  (here  called  Hobab)  was 
asked  by  Moses  to  journey  with  Israel.  It  was  his  clan,  in 
fact,  that  went  with  the  tribes  (Judges  1  : 16),  and  later  a 
member  of  this  clan  was  camped  near  the  scene  of  the  bat- 
tle with  Sisera,  who  met  his  death  at  the  hands  of  the  wife 
of  the  sheikh  (Judges  4  : 11;  17-22).  Later  in  the  history 
the  Rechabites — zealots  for  the  religion  of  Yahweh — were 
also  assigned  to  the  Kenites  (I  Chron.  2  :  55). 

These  scattered  indications  allow  us  to  conclude  that  the 
fundamental  fact  of  the  sojourn  at  Kadesh  was  the  for- 


54  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

mation  of  an  alliance  between  Yahweh,  Midian,  and  Israel 
against  hostile  neighbours.  And  who  these  were  can  hardly 
be  doubtful.  In  one  of  the  earliest  stages  of  the  wilderness 
wandering  we  read  of  a  conflict  with  Amalek  ending  with  a 
declaration  on  the  part  of  Yahweh  that  he  will  be  at  war 
with  this  tribe  from  generation  to  generation  (Ex.  17  :  8-16). 
Dramatic  use  of  this  declaration  is  made  by  the  writer  who 
tells  of  the  rejection  of  Saul  (I  Sam.  15),  so  that  the  fact 
of  the  enmity  is  strongly  attested.  The  lasting  feud  here 
alleged  between  Amalek  and  Israel  is  explicable  if  we  sup- 
pose the  object  of  the  alliance  between  Israel  and  Midian 
to  have  been  a  war  for  the  possession  of  the  oasis  of  Kadesh, 
to  which  the  Amalekites  asserted  a  claim.  The  fountain  of 
Kadesh  is  the  most  copious  in  all  the  region  and  it  would 
evidently  be  an  object  of  desire  to  all  the  desert  tribes.  We 
might  even  suppose  that  the  Kenites  had  been  worsted  in  an 
attempt  to  get  possession  of  the  coveted  spot  and  had  sought 
the  help  of  Israel  by  the  mediation  of  Moses. 

While  the  advantages  offered  by  the  new  religion  were 
material  in  their  nature,  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
sincerity  of  the  religious  impulse  by  which  Moses  himself 
was  moved.  In  the  account  of  the  battle  with  Amalek  he 
appears  as  the  religious  leader,  not  as  the  military  com- 
mander. His  position  is  not  unlike  that  of  Mohammed  in  a 
later  time.  And  as  in  certain  stages  of  social  development 
the  religious  motive  is  the  only  one  strong  enough  to  pro- 
duce united  action  in  any  community,  the  whole  history 
becomes  intelligible  on  the  supposition  that  Moses  was  one 
of  those  religious  natures  to  whom  the  divinity  is  a  present 
reality.  Such  a  nature  in  the  solitude  of  the  desert,  brood- 
ing over  the  wrongs  of  his  countrymen,  impressed  by  the 
power  of  the  God  of  the  flaming  mountain,  may  well  have 
heard  the  voice  out  of  the  bush  commanding  him  to  deliver 
Israel  from  bondage.  The  idea  of  revelation  lies  at  the 
basis  of  all  religion,  and  we  have  seen  how  powerful  it  is 
down  to  the  present  time.  It  is  by  revelation  of  himself, 
or,  as  earlier  thinkers  expressed  it,  by  revelation  of  his  name, 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  55 

that  a  divinity  showed  his  friendliness  to  man.  For  it  is 
only  when  one  knows  the  name  of  the  divinity  that  he  can 
effectively  call  him  to  his  aid.  A  certain  reluctance  to  reveal 
his  name  is,  indeed,  ascribed  to  the  divinity  in  some  Old 
Testament  stories,  as  though  he  were  afraid  of  thus  placing 
himself  in  the  power  of  man.  The  wrestler  with  Jacob  in  his 
night  experience  refuses  his  name;  the  superhuman  being  who 
speaks  to  Manoah  says  that  his  name  is  wonderful,  that  is, 
that  it  is  a  mystery  which  should  not  be  made  known  to  men. 
But  these  are  exceptional  cases.  Yahweh's  affection  for 
Moses  is  shown  by  his  full  revelation  of  his  name  and  by  his 
frequent  appearances  to  him,  in  which  he  speaks  with  him 
face  to  face  as  a  man  talks  to  his  friend.  And  that  this 
friendliness  is  extended  to  Israel  of  the  later  time  is  indicated 
by  the  declaration  of  the  earliest  legislative  code:  "In  every 
place  where  I  make  my  name  known  I  will  come  to  thee  and 
bless  thee"  (Ex.  20  : 24).  The  same  text  shows  that  the 
friendly  relation  was  to  be  recognised  on  the  part  of  man  by 
his  building  of  an  altar  and  bringing  his  offerings  to  the  God, 
thus  graciously  revealing  himself. 

If  our  attempt  to  find  the  earliest  tradition  is  successful, 
we  see  that  Moses  was  actually  the  founder  of  the  Yahweh 
religion  for  Israel.  From  this  time  the  people  never  alto- 
gether lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  in  some  sense  Yahweh  was 
their  God  and  that  he  had  a  unique  claim  to  their  allegiance. 
What  Yahweh  was  as  God  of  the  Kenites  or  of  Midian  is  not 
known  to  us.  The  theophany  at  Sinai  suggests  that  he  was 
God  of  one  of  the  volcanoes  which  within  historic  times  have 
been  active  along  the  east  shore  of  the  Red  Sea.  In  the 
consciousness  of  the  people  he  was  the  God  of  Sinai  or  Horeb 
long  after  the  settlement  in  Canaan.  The  pillar  of  smoke 
and  fire  which  some  of  the  documents  assert  to  have  led  the 
people  in  their  exodus,  and  afterward  in  their  wanderings, 
is  a  reflection  of  volcanic  phenomena.  Since  there  are  no 
volcanoes  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  it  is  clear  that  the  tra- 
dition which  connects  the  giving  of  the  Law  with  one  of  the 
peaks  in  this  region  is  without  foundation.  The  tradition  is, 


56  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

in  fact,  of  Christian  origin.  Whether  a  volcanic  tidal  wave 
was  not  connected  in  some  way  with  the  passages  of  the  Red 
Sea  it  is  useless  now  to  inquire. 

The  priest  and  the  prophet  (and  Moses  appears  in  both 
characters,  as  we  have  seen)  must  be  a  wonder-worker  if  he 
is  to  command  the  allegiance  of  his  people.  Moses  doubtless 
appeared  to  his  contemporaries  as  a  man  possessed  of  super- 
natural power.  The  rod  which  he  carried  was  the  visible 
organ  of  this  power.  By  it  he  wrought  the  plagues  in  Egypt 
and  by  it  he  parted  the  sea  so  that  the  people  passed  through. 
In  the  battle  with  Amalek  he  lays  a  spell  on  the  enemy  by 
holding  up  the  rod  (Ex.  17  :  8-13).  With  this  rod  he  smites 
the  rock  and  the  water  gushes  forth.  Whatever  the  histori- 
cal fact  behind  these  narratives,  we  have  no  reason  to  im- 
pugn Moses'  good  faith.  He  himself  must  have  supposed 
that  he  could  do  wonders,  and  without  powers  apparently 
supernatural  he  could  not  have  enforced  his  authority  on  a 
half-savage  people.  How  powerful  is  the  belief  in  the  ability 
of  the  diviner  to  work  weal  or  woe  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
story  of  Balaam,  whose  curse  was  invoked  in  order  that  Israel 
might  be  destroyed.  The  account  implies  that  the  curse 
would  have  had  the  desired  effect  had  not  Yahweh  turned  it 
into  a  blessing.  Deborah,  the  prophetess,  owed  her  influ- 
ence over  the  tribes  to  the  belief  that  her  song  had  magic 
power  and  would  throw  the  ranks  of  the  enemy  into  con- 
fusion. Comparison  with  these  characters  shows  the  nature 
of  the  influence  which  Moses  was  able  to  acquire  and  which 
he  used  so  as  to  give  his  people  a  new  impulse.  Making  all 
allowance  for  the  exaggerations  of  later  tradition,  the  work 
of  Moses  seems  intelligible  and  the  substratum  of  the  nar- 
rative has  probability  in  its  favour. 

It  remains  to  inquire  in  what  respect  the  religion  intro- 
duced by  Moses  was  an  advance  on  that  which  he  found 
already  in  existence.  Our  first  impulse  is  to  seek  a  reply 
from  the  name  Yahweh,  the  name  by  which  the  divinity 
made  himself  known.  The  account  itself  lays  stress  on  the 
meaning  of  the  name  and  has  naturally  called  forth  much 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  57 

speculation.  Unfortunately,  the  recorded  reflections  on  the 
meaning  of  the  name  are  of  much  later  date  than  the  name 
itself,  later  even  than  the  time  of  Moses.  The  meaning  I 
am  that  I  am,  which  has  become  part  of  the  Christian  tradi- 
tion, does  not  adequately  render  the  Hebrew  original.  Such 
a  phrase  is  much  too  abstract  for  Moses'  day,  and  if  the 
people  had  apprehended  this  as  the  meaning  of  the  name 
they  would  have  had  little  interest  in  it.  What  they  wanted 
was  a  god  who  would  give  them  help  in  a  given  exigency 
— some  assurance  of  his  sympathy  and  of  his  power  would 
meet  their  need.  Such  assurance  was  given  them,  but  not 
by  any  definition  of  the  divine  name.  The  Hebrew  phrase 
we  are  considering  would  perhaps  be  more  adequately  ren- 
dered: "I  will  be  what  I  will  to  be."  It  would  then  indi- 
cate that  Yahweh  is  the  self-determining  one,  the  one  who 
has  mercy  on  whom  he  will.  But  such  a  revelation  would 
have  been  superfluous  to  the  Israelites,  for  it  would  not  occur 
to  them  to  doubt  the  freedom  of  the  divinity  to  act  accord- 
ing to  his  own  good  pleasure.  This  text,  then,  is  of  no  use 
for  our  present  purpose. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  recount  all  the  speculations  of  later 
scholars  on  this  head.  They  will  appeal  with  different  force 
to  different  minds.  No  one  of  them  seems  to  have  occurred 
to  the  Hebrew  writers,  and  no  Old  Testament  allusion  can 
be  quoted  in  their  favour.  Only  one  of  them  need  be  men- 
tioned. This  is  the  one  which  derives  the  name  from  a 
verb  meaning  to  cast  down.  Yahweh  would  then  be  the 
one  who  casts  down  his  weapons — the  lightnings  or  the 
thunderbolts  or  the  stones  thrown  up  by  the  volcano.  A 
certain  force  is  given  this  conjecture  by  the  fact  that  Yah- 
weh in  many  passages  appears  as  the  God  of  the  storm. 
Volcanic  phenomena,  such  as  are  indicated  in  the  accounts 
of  the  sacred  mountain,  would  suggest  that  the  divinity  of 
the  place  was  active  in  the  thunder-storm.  The  connection 
of  mountains  and  storms  is  so  obvious  that  we  are  not  sur- 
prised to  find  the  God  of  the  storm  at  home  on  the  moun- 
tain top.  The  case  of  Zeus  is  strictly  parallel. 


58  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

The  storm  god  is  also  a  god  of  war,  and  that  Yahweh 
appealed  to  Israel  in  his  character  of  war-god  needs  no  dem- 
onstration. The  carrying  of  the  ark  into  battle  is  explicable 
only  on  this  theory,  and  the  exhortation  spoken  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  day's  march,  "Rise,  Yahweh,  and  let  thine 
enemies  be  scattered  and  let  them  that  hate  thee  flee  before 
thee,"  is  significant  enough.  The  belief  that  even  after  the 
settlement  in  Canaan  Yahweh  had  his  home  on  one  of  the 
southern  mountains,  whence  he  came  to  the  help  of  his 
people  in  their  conflicts,  is  dramatically  set  forth  in  the 
Song  of  Deborah: 

"Yahweh,  as  thou  earnest  forth  from  Seir, 
Marchedst  from  the  field  of  Edom, 
The  earth  trembled,  the  heavens  dropped, 
The  clouds  dropped  down  water; 
Mountains  shook  before  Yahweh, 
Before  Yahweh,  Israel's  God." 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  poet  meant  this  to  be 
taken  literally.  In  later  stanzas  of  the  same  poem  we  read 
that  the  stars  from  their  paths  fought  against  Sisera  and 
that  the  river  Kishon  swept  away  the  slain  Canaanite  war- 
riors. What  actually  occurred  was  a  cloudburst  in  which 
the  people  saw  the  direct  intervention  of  the  storm  god  on 
their  behalf.  It  is  probable  that  the  title  Yahweh  Zebaoth 
(Yahweh  of  Armies)  expresses  the  same  faith — that  the  celes- 
tial powers  are  under  the  command  of  Israel's  God  and  that 
he  marshals  them  for  the  help  of  his  people  in  battle.  An- 
other poem  of  early  date  describes  the  theophany  at  Sinai 
in  similar  terms: 

"Yahweh,  who  came  from  Sinai, 
And  rose  upon  his  people  from  Seir, 
Shone  forth  from  Mount  Paran, 
And  appeared  at  Meribath-Kadesh: 
The  people  of  Jacob  became  his  possession; 
He  became  king  in  Jeshurun." 

(Deut.  33  : 2-5).1 

1  Sinai  is  read  in  the  present  text  of  the  Song  of  Deborah  (Judges 
5  : 5),  but  is  apparently  not  original  there.  The  text  of  Deut.  33  is 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  59 

Yahweh  appears  as  God  of  the  storm  in  other  passages, 
also,  as  where  he  throws  down  hailstones  on  the  Canaanites 
(Joshua  10  : 11),  and  where,  in  answer  to  Samuel's  prayer 
he  sends  thunder  and  rain  (I  Sam.  12  : 17/.).  Even  in 
the  latest  period  Yahweh  appears  as  God  of  the  thunder- 
storm whose  voice  shakes  the  forest  (Psalm  29). 

On  the  basis  of  the  accounts  which  have  come  down  to 
us,  critically  treated,  it  seems  fair  to  say,  then,  that  Moses 
was  the  founder  of  the  particular  religion  of  Israel.  Him- 
self religiously  impressed  by  the  phenomena  of  the  moun- 
tain region  in  which  he  sojourned,  and  able  to  interpret  the 
experiences  of  his  people  from  this  point  of  view,  he  aroused 
in  them  a  faith  that  the  God  whom  he  had  met  in  the  desert 
had  chosen  Israel  as  his  special  charge.  As  God  of  the  storm 
he  was  able  to  fight  on  their  behalf  against  their  enemies, 
and  his  willingness  to  do  this  was  indicated  by  the  covenant 
into  which  he  entered.  The  promise  he  gave  in  this  cove- 
nant was  that  he  would  lead  them  into  Canaan.  In  the 
texts  now  in  our  hands  the  promised  presence  is  described 
in  various  ways.  At  one  time  it  is  said  that  an  angel  will 
accompany  the  people;  in  another  the  Face  of  Yahweh  is 
spoken  of.  Moses  is  dissatisfied  with  the  promise  of  the 
angel  and  will  content  himself  with  nothing  less  than  the 
Presence  of  Yahweh  in  person.1  The  promise  of  the  Pres- 
ence is  confirmed  and  the  faith  of  the  people  strengthened 
by  the  material  symbol  of  the  ark.  For  the  ark  a  tent  was 
provided,  in  which  Yahweh  appeared  and  gave  revelations 
to  his  servant. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Moses  wished  to  abolish  the 
worship  of  the  minor  divinities,  the  clan  and  family  gods, 
which  were  already  naturalised  among  the  people.  The  de- 
mand that  Yahweh  alone  should  be  worshipped  belongs  in 
the  later  period.  The  conflict  with  the  Baal  religion,  which 

not  free  from  suspicion,  but  what  is  given  above  has  probability  in  its 
favour. 

1  The  angel  in  whom  the  Name  dwells  can  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  Yahweh  himself  (Ex.  23  : 21),  but  the  entreaty  for  the  Presence 
(Face)  seems  to  indicate  that  the  latter  is  superior  (33  : 2,  14). 


60  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

is  set  forth  in  the  story  of  the  golden  calf,  is  also  of  later 
date.  Yet  the  impression  must  have  been  made  on  the 
people  that  Yahweh  is  the  superior  divinity,  to  whom  the 
first  devotion  must  be  paid.  The  covenant  between  Yah- 
weh and  the  clans  was  also  a  covenant  between  the  clans 
themselves;  and  by  this  union  of  discordant  elements,  and 
by  the  common  devotion  to  Yahweh,  not  only  was  the  sense 
of  nationality  awakened,  but  the  basis  was  laid  for  future 
progress.  And  it  is  probably  true,  as  has  been  urged  by 
others,  that  there  was  a  valuable  ethical  element  in  the 
thought  that  Yahweh  and  Israel  were  united  not  by  nature 
but  by  an  act  of  free  choice.  The  god  of  the  fathers  might 
have  been  supposed  to  be  by  nature  bound  so  closely  to 
the  descendants  that  he  was  compelled  to  take  their  part, 
whatever  their  behaviour  to  him.  But  when  the  people  re- 
minded themselves  that  there  was  an  act  of  free  choice  on 
Yahweh's  part,  they  realised  more  distinctly  that  they  were 
under  obligation  to  live  up  to  the  covenant.  The  germ  of 
the  prophetical  appeal  for  righteousness  may  be  found  here. 
The  point  of  view  is  given  by  one  of  the  late  writers  in  the 
words:  "Now  therefore  if  you  will  obey  my  voice  indeed 
and  keep  my  covenant  you  shall  be  my  possession  from 
among  all  peoples — for  all  the  earth  is  mine — and  you  shall 
be  unto  me  a  kingdom  of  priests  and  a  consecrated  nation" 
(Ex.  19  :  5/.).  Moses  would  not  have  used  words  of  such 
sweeping  import,  but  he  had  in  germ  the  idea  which  here 
finds  such  full  expression. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  that  the  local 
divinities  were  made  parties  to  oaths  and  agreements  be- 
tween men.  In  several  cases  it  is  evident  that  Yahweh 
showed  his  ethical  character  by  holding  men  to  their  en- 
gagements. The  most  conspicuous  instance  is  that  of 
the  Gibeonites  who  suffered  through  Saul's  zeal  for  Israel 
(II  Sam.  21  : 1-14).  The  strong  predilection  of  Yahweh 
for  his  own  people  seems  to  have  suggested  to  the  king 
that  his  transgression  of  the  ancient  covenant  would  be 
condoned  just  because  it  was  motived  by  zeal  for  Israel 


MOSES  AND  HIS  WORK  61 

and  therefore  for  Yahweh.  But  the  sequel  impressed  upon 
the  people  the  idea  that  Yahweh  is  a  God  of  righteous 
judgment.  This  same  idea  must  have  been  fostered  by 
Moses'  use  of  the  oracle  to  settle  disputes  among  his  peo- 
ple. A  good  while  after  Moses'  time  it  was  customary  to 
bring  a  man  suspected  of  breach  of  trust  to  the  sanctuary 
and  there  test  him  by  some  sort  of  ordeal  or  by  an  oath 
of  purgation  (Ex.  22  : 7-11).  The  tradition  that  Moses 
referred  the  cases  brought  before  him  to  the  decision  of 
God  indicates  that  this  was  ancient  custom.  It  probably 
indicates  also  that  Moses  himself  was  a  righteous  man,  for 
he  could  not  have  retained  his  hold  on  the  confidence  of  the 
people  if  he  had  not  administered  the  oracle  according  to 
justice. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  from  our  point  of  view 
the  Yahweh  of  Moses'  time  had  a  perfect  moral  character. 
That  he  was  a  thorough  partisan  so  far  as  Israel's  relations 
to  other  peoples  was  concerned  is  shown  by  his  taking  part 
in  the  wars.  The  enemies  of  Israel  were  also  the  enemies  of 
Yahweh.  Even  within  the  bounds  of  Israel  itself  he  might 
have  his  favourites.  If  his  action  seemed  arbitrary  no  one 
could  call  him  to  account,  and  he  had  full  freedom  to  act 
according  to  his  good  pleasure. 

Although  the  founder  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  Moses  was 
not  in  our  sense  of  the  word  a  monotheist.  Probably  he 
never  considered  the  question  whether  there  was  one  God 
for  the  whole  universe.  The  problems  which  confronted 
him  were  practical  problems,  and  for  the  solution  of  these 
it  was  enough  to  say  that  Yahweh  was  powerful  enough  to 
secure  Israel  in  possession  of  all  that  he  had  promised  them. 
Sufficient  to  that  day  was  the  faith  that  Yahweh  was  a  God 
of  war  and  that  Israel  was  his  special  care.  Except  that 
he  was  more  powerful,  he  did  not  differ  essentially  from 
Chemosh  of  Moab,  who  also  delighted  in  the  slaughter  of 
his  enemies,  who  were  the  enemies  of  his  people  as  well. 
Like  Moab,  Israel  devoted  its  enemies  to  destruction,  and 
Yahweh  insisted  on  the  carrying  out  of  the  vow,  as  we  see 


62  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

from  the  case  of  Agag.  The  consecration  of  warriors  by  a 
special  service  when  going  on  a  campaign  was  customary  in 
Israel  as  among  her  neighbours.  In  these  respects  the  re- 
ligion of  Moses  was  crude  and  cruel  like  the  other  religions 
of  the  time.  But  the  religion  of  Moses  had  in  it  the  prom- 
ise of  development  which  cannot  be  truly  asserted  of  these 
others.  How  the  development  came  about  we  have  now 
to  see. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   TRANSITION 

FROM  about  1200  B.  C.  until  the  time  of  David  the  Israel- 
ites were  making  their  way  into  Canaan.  Tradition  is  no 
doubt  correct  in  representing  the  conquest  of  the  country 
east  of  the  Jordan  as  first  accomplished,  though  it  is  wrong 
in  making  the  occupation  the  result  of  a  single  battle,  or 
rather  of  two  battles.  East  of  the  Jordan  the  people  were 
always  half  nomads,  so  that  amalgamation  with  the  earlier 
inhabitants,  or  gradual  absorption  of  them,  was  easier  here 
than  across  the  river.  The  impression  made  by  our  narra- 
tives is  to  the  effect  that  for  centuries  the  land  of  Gilead 
retained  much  of  primitive  Israelite  life  and  manners.  It 
is  for  this  reason,  perhaps,  that  Ishbaal  and  David  found 
a  refuge  in  Mahanaim  when  hard  pressed  by  enemies  in 
Canaan — the  tie  of  blood,  so  strong  among  the  nomads,  was 
here  in  full  force  as  in  the  old  desert  days.  But  the  political 
centre  of  the  country  was  west  of  the  Jordan,  and  our  sources 
tell  us  little  of  the  religion  and  manners  of  the  transjordanic 
region. 

In  Canaan  proper,  at  the  time  of  the  invasion,  the  agri- 
cultural life  was  fully  established  except  in  the  country  bor- 
dering on  the  Dead  Sea,  and  the  change  brought  about  by 
amalgamation  with  the  earlier  inhabitants  was  marked — 
though  perhaps  not  so  marked  as  we  are  accustomed  to 
think.  Israelites  and  Canaanites  were  of  the  same  blood 
and  spoke  the  same  language.  The  later  biblical  writers 
preferred  to  disguise  this  fact,  making  Canaan  the  son  of 
Ham  while  Israel  was  derived  from  Shem.  But  there  can 
be  no  doubt  from  the  evidence  in  our  hands  that  the  two 

63 


64  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

peoples  were  closely  related.  Their  customs  were  very  sim- 
ilar; their  names  for  God  (except  that  of  Yahweh)  were  the 
same;  intermarriage  was  early  tolerated.  The  main  differ- 
ence was  the  one  already  mentioned — the  Canaanites  were 
agriculturists  and  lived  in  walled  towns.  Since  it  was  dif- 
ficult for  the  nomads  to  reduce  fortified  places,  the  process, 
which  is  usually  thought  of  as  a  conquest,  was  really  an 
amalgamation  in  which  the  superior  vigour  of  the  Israelite 
stock  asserted  itself,  making  an  Israelite  nation  out  of  the 
combined  elements.  The  Israelite  authors  are  conscious 
that  amalgamation  has  taken  place,  for  the  more  rigid  of 
them  allege  intermarriage  with  the  Canaanites  as  the  rea- 
son for  all  the  misfortunes  which  befell  the  people.  Indi- 
rectly they  testify  to  the  same  thing  when  they  make  cer- 
tain tribes  sons  of  Jacob  by  slave  girls.  The  names  of  at 
least  two  of  the  tribes  (Gad  and  Asher)  point  in  the  same 
direction,  for  they  are  the  names  of  Syrian  divinities.  Judah 
marries  a  Canaanitess — that  is,  the  tribe  of  Judah  was  made 
up  from  the  two  separate  races.  In  the  testament  of  Jacob 
Issachar  is  under  task-work  (Gen.  49  : 15).  This  means  that 
the  Israelite  tribe  is  the  inferior  part  of  the  composite  com- 
munity. A  commentary  on  the  statement  is  given  by  the 
earliest  account  of  the  conquest  (Judges  1),  in  which  the 
author  tells  us  frankly  that  in  most  of  the  cities  the  Canaan- 
ites were  too  strong  to  be  dispossessed  and  that  they  and  the 
Israelites  dwelt  together,  sometimes  one  element  being  the 
predominant  one,  sometimes  the  other.  The  most  that 
the  Israelites  could  do  in  the  majority  of  cases  was  to 
reduce  the  older  inhabitants  to  the  position  of  serfs,  and 
this  was  not  done  until  the  time  of  Solomon. 

The  religion  of  the  Canaanites  was  not  very  different  from 
that  of  their  nomad  neighbours.  There  was,  therefore,  no 
violent  break  when  the  immigrants  adopted  the  sacred 
places  of  the  country  and  attributed  their  foundation  to 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.  These  sacred  places  were  on 
the  hilltops  and  under  the  evergreen  trees,  and  were  associ- 
ated with  the  local  divinities  just  in  the  way  in  which  the 


THE  TRANSITION  65 

desert  rocks  and  trees  were.  When  the  people  of  Shechem 
consecrated  Abimelech  as  prince  they  did  it  at  the  Oak  of 
the  Pillar  which  is  in  Shechem  (Judges  9:6).  These  people 
were  Canaanites,  and  the  ma^eba  at  this  sacred  tree  was 
probably  an  object  of  worship  before  the  Israelite  invasion. 
Yet  it  had  now  become  the  dwelling  of  Yahweh,  for  one 
author  supposes  it  set  up  by  Joshua  (Joshua  24  : 26),  and  if 
by  him  it  must  have  been  sacred  to  the  God  of  Israel.  It 
is,  perhaps,  not  without  significance  that  the  divinity  of  this 
city  is  called  El-berith  or  Baal-berith  (Judges  8  :  33;  9  :  4 
and  46),  for  the  name  means  God-of-the-covenant  or  Lord- 
of-the-covenant.  The  name  was  given  to  the  God  because 
he  had  become  the  guardian  of  the  treaty  by  which  the  two 
peoples  bound  themselves  to  live  together  in  peace. 

The  examples  of  sacred  stones,  already  discussed  under 
the  head  of  nomadic  religion,  need  not  again  be  cited,  though 
the  most  of  them,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  were  found 
on  the  soil  of  Canaan.  To  later  writers  they  were  uncon- 
genial, and  the  effort  was  made  to  disguise  their  original 
cultic  significance  and  to  make  of  them  historic  monuments. 
The  stones  from  which  the  sanctuary  of  Gilgal  took  its  names 
are  thus  to  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Joshua  simply  memori- 
als of  the  crossing  of  the  Jordan  (Joshua  4:3),  and  the  stone 
Ebenezer  appears  as  a  similar  monument  of  an  Israelite  vic- 
tory (I  Sam.  7  :  12).  The  sacred  stones  on  Ebal  (originally 
Gerizim,  Deut.  27  :  2)  are  made  into  stones  of  record  on 
which  the  Deuteronomic  law  is  written.  But  the  mention 
of  the  altar  in  the  same  connection  indicates  that  the  place 
was  a  sanctuary.  Numbers  of  such  simple  sanctuaries  may 
have  been  founded  after  the  Israelites  entered  the  country, 
for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  earliest  law  encouraged  the  erection 
of  altars  wherever  some  extraordinary  event  indicated  the 
special  presence  of  the  divinity.  At  the  close  of  a  day  of 
battle  Saul  had  a  great  stone  set  apart  as  a  place  of  sacrifice, 
and  the  account  indicates  that  this  king  showed  his  piety 
by  erecting  a  number  of  such  altars  (I  Sam.  14  :  35). 

Excavation  seems  to  show  that  the  Canaanite  sanctuaries 


66  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

were  for  the  most  part  open-air  spaces  with  pillars  and  altars 
such  as  are  indicated  in  the  Hebrew  accounts.  But  there 
are  indications  also  that  in  the  more  advanced  communities 
the  god  was  represented  by  a  metal  image,  in  which  case  a 
building  was  needed  for  the  protection  of  the  sacred  object. 
The  God  of  Israel  had  only  an  ark  or  a  tent,  and  permanent 
structures  such  as  we  find  at  Shiloh  must  have  been  taken 
over  from  the  Canaanites.  The  comparatively  late  author 
who  ascribes  to  David  the  intention  to  build  the  temple 
affirms  that  Yahweh  had  sojourned  in  a  tent  up  to  that 
time  (II  Sam.  7:6).  This  was  true  only  in  a  limited  sense, 
for  the  temple  at  Shiloh,  though  probably  Canaanite  in  origin, 
had  been  appropriated  by  Yahweh  after  the  conquest.  That 
it  became  customary  to  represent  Yahweh  by  an  image  is 
also  evident  from  the  narratives,  for  the  later  reaction 
against  molten  images  indicates  that  the  Israelites  had 
yielded  to  Canaanite  influence  in  this  respect. 

All  that  we  know  of  the  Canaanites  and  their  kinsmen 
leads  us  to  believe  that  they  worshipped  a  multitude  of 
divinities,  genii  locorum,  such  as  we  have  already  discov- 
ered among  the  Hebrews  in  the  nomadic  stage.  The  name 
most  frequently  applied  to  one  of  these  gods  was  Baal, 
originally  not  a  proper  name  but  an  appellative  meaning 
possessor.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  primitive  Semitic  word, 
for  in  Babylon  it  was  applied  to  one  of  the  older  divinities 
in  the  form  Bel,  and  afterward  it  was  transferred  to  the 
chief  god  of  Babylon,  whose  proper  name  was  Marduk. 
In  the  Old  Testament  it  occurs  in  the  plural  to  designate 
the  whole  group  of  local  divinities,  or  else  with  the  article 
showing  the  consciousness  that  it  was  not  strictly  a  proper 
name.  In  a  number  of  place-names  it  shows  that  the  local 
divinity  was  regarded  as  the  proprietor  of  the  place.  Thus 
we  have  Baal-peor,  the  divinity  of  the  mountain  Peor  (Num. 
25  : 3-5),  Baal-hermon,  the  god  of  Mount  Hermon  (Judges 
3:3),  parallel  to  which  is  Baal-lebanon  in  an  inscription. 
Baal-perazim  is  in  our  narrative  connected  with  a  mani- 
festation of  Yahweh  (II  Sam.  5  : 20).  Baal-tamar  is  evi- 


THE  TRANSITION  67 

dently  the  Baal  who  inhabits  a  palm-tree  (Judges  20  :  33). 
In  some  cases  the  spirit  is  feminine — something  which  the  / 
later  religion  of  Israel  rejected.     Thus  the  Baalath-beer  is  \ 
the  Naiad  of  the  well  (Joshua  19  : 8;   other  Baalahs  are 
mentioned  in  15:9,   11,  and  19:44).     Finally,  we  have 
Bamoth-baal  and  Kirjath-baal,  both  of  which  indicate  that 
the  Baal  is  lord  or  possessor  of  the  heights  or  of  the  city 
(Num.  22  :  41;  Joshua  15  :  60). 

The  conception  of  the  divinity  as  possessor  of  a  place, 
or  district  implies  private  property  in  land,  something  un-' 
known  to  the  nomad  but  essential  to  the  agriculturist.  A 
man  cannot  cultivate  successfully  unless  he  has  undisturbed 
title  to  his  land.  This  is  conspicuously  true  in  the  culti- 
vation of  those  crops  for  which  a  considerable  part  of  Canaan 
was  famous — the  fig,  the  olive,  and  the  vine — since  these 
crops  require  a  series  of  years  before  they  repay  the  care  of 
the  cultivator.  Moreover,  the  success  of  the  farmer  de- 
pends upon  the  water  supply,  and  in  the  border  of  the 
desert  irrigation  is  necessary  to  bring  the  land  into  fruit- 
fulness.  This  labour  will  not  be  expended  unless  the  gar- 
dener is  tolerably  certain  that  he  will  receive  his  reward. 
But  the  water  supply,  whether  it  comes  from  the  sky  or 
from  the  underground  reservoir  which  wells  up  in  springs 
and  fountains,  is  evidently  given  by  the  gods.  Hence  the 
idea  of  the  nomad  is  that  the  oasis  where  the  water  flows 
out  of  the  ground  and  causes  a  luxuriant  vegetation  is  the 
garden  of  God.  Private  property  in  land  was  first  ascribed 
to  the  divinity,  and  the  agriculturist  thought  of  himself  as 
tenant  of  this  proprietor.  The  farmer  who  had  subdued 
the  wild  land,  therefore,  held  that  he  owed  something  to  his 
landlord.  His  agriculture  was  interwoven  with  religious 
rites  designed  to  conciliate  the  god,  and  the  first-fruits  of 
the  crop  were  paid  to  him  in  recognition  of  his  rights.  Not 
all  the  Baals  were  gods  of  agriculture,  but  those  who  most 
distinctly  appealed  to  the  Israelites  when  they  were  learn- 
ing to  till  the  soil  must  have  been  those  who  had  it  in  their 
power  to  give  or  to  withhold  the  harvest.  Hosea  correctly 


68  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

represents  the  popular  belief  when  he  makes  Israel  justify 
/  her  worship  of  the  local  Baals  by  saying:  "I  will  go  after 
my  lovers  who  give  me  my  bread  and  my  water,  my  wool 
and  my  flax,  my  oil  and  my  drink"  (Hosea  2:7).  It  is 
probable  that  the  larger  part  of  Canaanitish  religion  con- 
sisted in  rites  designed  to  propitiate  the  Baals  to  whom  the 
soil  belonged. 

It  follows  that  Baal  was  not  a  sun-god.  That  the  sun 
was  worshipped  in  Palestine  is  indicated  by  the  place-names 
Beth-shemesh  and  En-shemesh.  But  he  was  not  the  god 
of  the  cultivator,  for  the  sun  in  Syria  is  hostile  to  the  crops 
rather  than  favourable  to  them.  Even  the  Baal-shamem  of 
the  Phoenicians  (Baal  of  heaven)  seems  to  have  been  a 
sky-god  rather  than  a  sun-god.  From  a  sky-god  the  rain 
might  be  expected,  and  this  Baal  might  be  the  husbandman's 
patron  divinity.  Baal-hamman,  whom  we  meet  in  Phoe- 
nician inscriptions  and  possibly  once  in  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures (Cant.  8:11),  is  probably  not  the  Baal  of  the  sun,  as 
has  sometimes  been  maintained,  but  the  Baal  of  the  pillar, 
for  the  hammanim  were  pillars  or  obelisks  like  the  ma^e- 
both.  The  translation  "sun-images"  given  in  the  Revised 
Version  (Lev.  26  :  30;  Isaiah  17:  8 ;  27  :  9)  is  based  on  con- 
jecture only.  What  seems  clear  is  that  Baal  was  worshipped 
as  the  god  of  fruitfulness  and  the  giver  of  the  crops.  As- 
sociated with  him  was  his  female  counterpart. 

We  have  already  found  traces  of  goddesses  in  some  place- 
names.  Parallel  with  these  Palestinian  divinities  is  the 
Baalah  of  Gebal  who  was  the  chief  object  of  worship  in 
that  city.  She  is  called  simply  the  Baalah  or  Mistress  of 
the  city.  What  her  proper  name  was  is  not  certain,  but  it 
is  probable  that  she  was  one  form  of  a  female  divinity  widely 
worshipped  throughout  the  Semitic  world.  This  goddess 
bore  the  name  Ishtar  in  Babylon,  Astarte  (Ashtart)  in 
Canaan.  Among  the  Hebrews  her  name  was  undoubtedly 
the  same  that  we  meet  in  Phoenician,  though  the  Hebrew 
punctuators  have  vocalised  it  differently  (Ashtoreth,  plural 
Ashtaroth),  perhaps  to  avoid  pronouncing  a  name  offensive 


THE  TRANSITION  69 

to  them.  As  to  the  nature  of  the  divinity  there  can  be 
no  doubt;  she  was  the  goddess  of  animal  fruitfulness  and 
therefore  of  sensual  passion.  In  the  Babylonian  myth  she 
is  represented  as  having  had  many  lovers  upon  whom  she 
has  brought  misfortune.  Evidence  of  her  worship  in  Pales- 
tine is  given  by  some  place-names,  though  these  are  not 
numerous.  Thus  we  read  of  an  Ashtaroth  (Deut.  1:4; 
Joshua  9  :  10)  and  of  a  Beeshtera  which  may  be  abbrevi- 
ated from  Beth-ashtart  (Joshua  21  : 27).  East  of  the 
Jordan  was  Asteroth-karnaim,  which  means  Ashtart-of- 
two-horns  (Gen.  14  :  5).  Because  of  the  two  horns  Ashtart 
has  been  supposed  to  be  a  moon-goddess,  but  there  is  no 
direct  evidence  to  connect  her  with  the  moon.  Her  plane- 
tary embodiment  in  Babylon  was  the  celestial  body  which 
we  still  call  Venus,  translating  the  Babylonian  name  into 
its  Latin  equivalent.  In  accounting  for  a  horned  goddess 
we  may  suppose  that  the  horns  are  those  of  her  sacred  ani- 
mal, the  cow,  or  perhaps  the  ewe.  Ashtart  was  worshipped 
in  one  of  the  chief  Philistine  towns  (I  Sam.  31  :  10). 

The  best  evidence  of  the  attraction  which  Canaanite  re- 
ligion had  for  Israel  is  given  by  the  constant  protests  of 
Hebrew  writers  against  the  Baals  and  Ashtarts.  These 
protests  show  that  these  were  generic  names  for  the  various 
local  divinities.  The  proper  names  of  some  of  them  have 
come  down  to  us.  Thus  we  read  of  Hadad-Rimmon,  the 
Syrian  god  of  the  thunder-storm;  of  Anath,  a  Syrian  (orig- 
inally Babylonian)  goddess;  of  Nebo,  who  undoubtedly 
came  from  Babylon;  of  Dagon,  one  of  the  chief  gods  of  the 
Philistines,  but  who  also  had  a  sanctuary,  Beth-dagon,  in 
Israel;  and  of  the  sun-god  as  already  mentioned.  Whether 
the  horses  dedicated  to  this  divinity,  which  were  kept  in 
Jerusalem  as  late  as  the  reign  of  Josiah,  were  originally 
Canaanite  or  whether  they  were  Assyrian  importations  can- 
not be  made  out  with  certainty  (II  Kings  23  : 11).  The 
cult  of  the  sun  and  moon  and  constellations  which  is  men- 
tioned in  the  same  connection  (II  Kings  23  :  5)  and  against 
which  the  Deuteronomist  inveighs  (Deut.  4  :  19)  may  have 


70  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

come  in  with  the  Assyrian  domination.  But  enough  re- 
mains to  show  that  the  Israelites  did  not  think  of  displacing 
the  multitude  of  divinities  which  they  found  in  possession 
of  the  country  when  they  entered  it.  What  they  did  at 
first  was  to  worship  these  local  divinities  along  with  Yahweh, 
and  we  may  suppose  the  reaction  against  this  practice  is 
indicated  by  the  command:  "Thou  shalt  not  have  any 
other  gods  in  my  presence."  Late  writers  are  reluctant  to 
admit  that  other  gods  were  actually  associated  with  Yahweh 
in  the  same  sanctuary,  but  various  hints  to  the  effect  that 
they  were  are  contained  in  the  history  of  the  Jerusalem 
temple.  One  class  of  divinities — the  teraphim — was  found 
in  the  sanctuary  of  Yahweh  from  the  time  of  the  judges 
(Judges  17  :  5)  down  to  that  of  Hosea  (Hosea  3:4).  The 
fact  that  Canaanite  altars,  pillars,  and  images  had  been 
adopted  by  the  Israelites  is  clearly  seen  by  the  Deuteron- 
omist,  and  this  explains  his  bitterness  against  the  country 
sanctuaries  (Deut.  12  :  2/.). 

The  association  of  various  gods  in  the  same  sanctuary 
was  apparently  followed  by  identifying  the  several  divin- 
ities as  so  many  forms  of  one  God.  In  the  case  of  Yahweh 
and  Baal  this  was  made  easy  by  the  fact  already  noticed 
that  Baal  means  simply  possessor  or  owner  and  might  be 
applied  to  any  god.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  Israelites 
should  think  of  Yahweh  as  the  Lord  (Baal)  of  Israel.  In 
the  same  way  the  divinity  named  Melek  (in  our  text  Mo- 
loch) would  be  identified  with  Yahweh  the  King  (melek)  of 
Israel.  A  god  of  this  name  was,  as  we  know,  worshipped 
by  the  Phoenicians;  under  the  name  Milcom  he  was  the 
chief  god  of  the  Ammonites  and  had  a  sanctuary  at  Jeru- 
salem (I  Kings  11  :  5-7).  His  worship  among  the  Israelites 
is  indicated  by  a  number  of  personal  names,  for  there  seems 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  as  the  name  Elimelek,  among  the 
Phoenicians,  indicated  the  worship  of  this  divinity,  so  it  did 
among  the  Hebrews.  The  notoriety  of  this  god  came  from  the 
fact  that  he  was  worshipped  by  human  sacrifice  in  the  Valley 
of  Hinnom  just  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  Jeremiah 


THE  TRANSITION  71 

leaves  no  doubt  in  our  mind  that  by  the  people  at  large 
this  service  was  thought  to  belong  to  Yahweh,  for  speaking 
in  the  name  of  Yahweh  he  says:  "And  they  built  the  high- 
places  of  Baal  which  are  in  the  Valley  of  the  Son  of  Hinnom 
to  cause  their  sons  and  their  daughters  to  pass  through  the 
fire  to  Melek,  which  I  commanded  not,  neither  came  it  into 
my  mind"  (Jer.  32  :  35).  It  is  impossible  to  see  why  Yah- 
weh should  protest  that  this  sort  of  sacrifice  had  not  come 
into  his  mind  unless  the  people  supposed  it  to  be  offered  to 
him.  In  another  passage  the  prophet  speaks  of  the  high 
places  of  Baal  being  built  "to  burn  their  sons  and  their 
daughters  in  the  fire  for  burnt  offerings  to  Baal,  which  I 
commanded  not,  neither  spoke  it,  nor  did  it  come  into  my 
mind"  (19  :  5).  The  citations  make  it  clear  that  the  people 
of  Jerusalem  offered  these  sacrifices  to  Yahweh,  whom  they 
called  both  Baal  and  Melek.  With  these  passages  we 
should  combine  the  prohibitions  in  Leviticus  (18  :  21  and 
20  :  2-5)  which  speak  of  sacrifices  to  Melek  as  defilements 
of  the  sanctuary  of  Yahweh  and  profanation  of  his  name. 
They  could  not  effect  this  defilement  unless  they  were 
brought  into  Yahweh's  own  sanctuary. 

The  amalgamation  of  Yahweh  with  Baal  and  Melek  is 
probably  only  one  example  of  a  process  which  went  on 
through  a  long  period.  It  was,  in  fact,  inevitable  that  the 
amalgamation  of  peoples  should  bring  syncretism  in  religion. 
Even  where  hostility  was  acute  Canaanite  families  might 
go  over  to  Israel  and  be  adopted,  as  is  made  plain  by  the 
story  of  Rahab  (Joshua  6  :  25).  The  town  of  Gibeon  and  its 
allies  secured  a  treaty  which  gave  them  standing  in  the 
Israelite  commonwealth,  and  Yahweh  protected  their  rights 
against  the  aggressions  of  Saul  (II  Sam.  21  : 1-14).  This 
case  is  particularly  instructive  because  it  shows  that  the 
divinity  worshipped  at  Gibeon  was  Yahweh;  the  trans- 
gressors of  the  covenant  were  impaled  before  the  Yahweh 
of  Gibeon.  The  Gibeonite  sanctuary  became  in  fact  one 
of  the  most  prominent  of  those  dedicated  to  the  God  of 
Israel,  for  in  the  time  of  Solomon  it  was  "the  great  high 


72  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

place"  (I  Kings  3:4).  Intermarriage  between  Israelites 
and  Canaanites  was  common.  A  certain  amount  of  pref- 
erence for  marriage  within  the  clan  is  indicated  by  the 
patriarchal  stories,  but  the  very  mild  protest  of  Samson's 
father  against  his  son's  proposal  to  take  a  Philistine  wife 
shows  that  the  opposition  cannot  have  been  very  intense 
(Judges  14  : 1-3).  Gideon  married  a  Canaanitess.  In  fact, 
it  was  only  in  the  time  of  Deuteronomy  that  the  prohibi- 
tion was  uttered:  "Thou  shalt  not  give  thy  daughter  to 
his  son,  nor  take  his  daughter  to  thy  son;  for  this  will  turn 
away  thy  sons  from  following  me"  (Deut.  7:3). 

To  the  strict  worshipper  of  Yahweh  there  was  a  real  dan- 
ger in  such  alliances,  for  the  religion  of  the  women  of  the 
family  is  pretty  certain  to  be  instilled  into  the  children.  It 
is  probable  also  that  the  rites  which  were  supposed  to  secure 
fruitfulness  were  practised  by  the  women,  and  the  new- 
comers, in  learning  agriculture,  would  feel  it  necessary  to 
adopt  these  rites.  If,  as  we  have  supposed,  the  clan  and 
family  gods  were  worshipped  along  with  Yahweh  there 
could  be  no  effective  protest  against  the  adoption  of  the 
Baals  and  Ashtarts.  These  were  at  least  gods  near  at  hand, 
while  Yahweh's  proper  home  was  the  desert.  Nor  must  we 
underestimate  the  influence  exerted  by  the  more  ornate  rit- 
ual which  was  performed  at  the  Canaanite  sanctuaries.  The 
essence  of  the  agricultural  festivals  was  eating  and  drinking 
and  rejoicing  before  the  god,  with  music  and  dancing  and 
in  some  cases  sexual  indulgence  such  as  the  primitive  mind 
supposes  acceptable  to  the  divinities  of  fruitfulness.  Sa- 
cred prostitutes  were  found  at  the  high  places,  and  appeared 
even  in  connection  with  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  down  to 
j  the  time  of  Hezekiah  (I  Kings  14  : 24;  15  : 12;  II  Kings 
23  :  7).  The  unbridled  licence  of  the  great  festivals,  so  un- 
sparingly denounced  by  the  prophets,  was  taken  over  by 
the  religion  of  Yahweh  from  that  of  Baal  and  Ashtart. 
Like  these  divinities,  Yahweh  was  now  honoured  by  gifts 
of  wine  and  oil — the  most  valued  productions  of  the  agri- 
cultural life  (Judges  9  : 9  and  13). 


THE  TRANSITION  73 

In  proportion  as  Israelites  and  Canaanites  became  one 
people  Baal  and  Yahweh  would  become  one  God.  And 
since  Israel  was  the  more  vigorous  stock,  the  composite 
divinity  was  called  Yahweh.  He  was  doubtless  called  Baal, 
also,  as  is  made  known  by  proper  names  compounded  with 
Baal  even  in  the  family  of  devout  worshippers  of  Yahweh. 
We  need  only  notice  Jerubbaal,  one  of  the  heroes  identified 
with  Gideon  by  tradition;  Ishbaal,  son  of  Saul  (the  correct 
reading  has  been  preserved  in  I  Chron.  8  :  33;  elsewhere  the 
scribes  have  distorted  the  name  to  Ishbosheth);  Baaliadah, 
son  of  David  (I  Chron.  14  :  7) ;  and  Ishbaal,  one  of  the  cham- 
pions in  David's  army  (I  Chron.  11  : 11,  emended  text). 
Jonathan's  son,  who  appears  in  most  passages  as  Mephi- 
bosheth,  was  really  named  Meribbaal  (I  Chron.  8  :  34;  9  :  40), 
and  we  find  Baalhanan  (I  Chron.  27  : 28),  and  Baaliah 
(I  Chron.  12  :  5).  This  last  name  is  particularly  instructive, 
for  it  distinctly  affirms  that  Yahweh  is  Baal,  and  there  is 
some  evidence  that  the  equivalent  name  Jobaal  was  once 
found  in  the  text  (Greek  manuscripts  of  Judges  9  : 26). 

In  the  time  of  David,  then,  Yahweh  has  become  identi- 
fied with  the  Baal — he  is  the  Baal  of  Israel,  we  may  say, 
and  the  land  of  Canaan  is  his  land.  David  complains  that 
his  banishment  from  the  cultivated  country  is  banishment 
from  the  presence  of  Yahweh  (I  Sam.  26  : 19).  The  older 
sanctuaries  have  been  adopted  by  Yahweh.  The  most 
conspicuous  instance — that  of  Gibeon — has  already  been 
mentioned;  but  this  was  not  an  isolated  case,  for  Gilgal 
seems  to  be  another,  and  even  the  site  of  the  Jerusalem 
temple  may  have  been  determined  by  the  previous  wor- 
ship of  the  local  divinity.  The  adoption  of  earlier  sacred 
places  by  a  new  religion  is  one  of  the  commonest  phenomena 
in  religious  history.  The  reconsecration  of  the  church  of 
Saint  Sophia  by  the  Moslems,  and  its  use  as  a  mosque  down 
to  the  present  day,  is  a  case  in  point.  The  great  mosque  of 
Damascus  was  a  church  before  it  became  a  mosque,  a  tem- 
ple of  Zeus  before  it  became  a  church,  and  probably  a  temple 
of  Rimmon  before  it  was  assigned  to  Zeus. 


74  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

The  biblical  narrative  seems  to  have  preserved  the  mem- 
ory of  such  a  transfer  in  the  story  of  Gideon  and  his  altar. 
The  narrator  represents  Gideon  receiving  a  divine  command 
to  break  down  the  altar  of  Baal  and  erect  one  to  Yahweh 
on  the  same  spot  (Judges  6  : 25-28).  Probably  the  original 
text  stated  that  the  new  altar  was  made  of  the  stones  taken 
from  the  old.  For  fuel  Gideon  used  the  wood  of  the  asherah. 
If  the  narrator  means  that  the  altar  of  Yahweh  is  erected 
on  the  same  spot  and  with  the  same  material  as  the  old, 
he  is  far  removed  from  the  later  abhorrence  of  Baal- worship; 
for  the  later  point  of  view  would  have  been  that  the  spot 
once  devoted  to  Baal  was  for  ever  unclean,  and  that  the 
stones  of  the  altar  as  well  as  the  wood  of  the  asherah  were 
an  abomination  to  Yahweh.  The  historic  fact  underlying 
the  narrative  must  have  been  that  the  original  sanctuary 
of  Baal  at  Ophrah  was  taken  over  by  Yahweh. 

Though  Yahweh  was  now  fully  naturalised  as  god  of  Ca- 
naan and  god  of  agriculture,  he  did  not  lose  his  warlike  char- 
acter. This  is  shown  by  the  use  of  the  ark  in  war.  In  one 
instance,  indeed,  this  use  led  to  disaster,  and  the  palladium 
passed  into  possession  of  the  Philistines.  But  the  sequel 
showed  the  superiority  of  Israel's  God.  He  humiliated 
Dagon  and  afflicted  the  people  with  a  pestilence,  so  that 
they  were  obliged  to  send  the  hostile  guest  back  to  his  own 
country,  sending  also  a  votive  offering.  The  historicity  of 
the  account  does  not  here  concern  us.  It  shows  the  pop- 
ular idea  of  the  superiority  of  Yahweh.  His  close  associa- 
tion with  the  ark  led  David  to  bring  that  sacred  object  to 
Jerusalem  and  to  carry  it  with  him  on  his  campaigns.  Yet 
the  idea  persisted  that  Yahweh  retained  his  home  at  Horeb, 
so  that  Elijah  sought  him  there  when  in  need  of  special 
encouragement.  Yet  Elijah  sacrificed  at  Carmel,  just  as 
the  people  did  at  the  local  high  places.  So  close  is  the  asso- 
ciation of  Yahweh  with  the  soil  of  Canaan  that  Naaman 
begs  some  of  that  soil  that  he  may  erect  a  private  altar 
upon  it  in  Damascus  (II  Kings  5  : 17).  The  danger  that 
the  Yahweh  of  each  locality  would  be  regarded  as  differ- 


THE  TRANSITION  75 

ent  from  all  other  Yahwehs  was  not  remote.  Solomon 
would  hardly  have  gone  to  Gibeon  to  worship  had  he  not 
supposed  the  Yahweh  of  Gibeon  to  be  more  ready  to  an- 
swer prayer  than  the  one  at  Jerusalem.  When  Absalom 
was  in  exile  he  vowed  a  vow  to  the  Yahweh  of  Hebron,  and 
David  found  it  quite  natural  that  the  vow  should  be  paid 
at  that  sanctuary  (II  Sam.  15  :7/.).  Whether  Absalom's 
statement  was  according  to  fact  or  whether  it  was  only  a 
pretext  makes  no  difference  for  our  present  purpose. 

The  number  of  places  at  which  Yahweh  was  worshipped 
during  the  early  monarchy  is  not  realised  by  the  casual 
reader  of  the  Old  Testament.  We  have  already  had  occa- 
sion to  mention  Gibeon,  Gilgal,  and  Ophrah.  At  Shiloh 
was  a  notable  sanctuary,  in  charge  of  a  family  of  priests, 
who  possibly  claimed  to  descend  from  Moses.  Moses  was 
also  claimed  as  ancestor  by  the  priests  of  Dan  (Judges 
18  :  30).  At  Nob  was  a  sanctuary,  in  possession  of  a  priestly 
clan,  all  the  members  of  which  except  one  were  massacred 
by  Saul  (I  Sam.  22  : 18).  Bethel  traced  its  foundation  to 
the  patriarch  Jacob,  and  other  sacred  places  were  associated 
with  the  patriarchs.  We  may  be  sure  that  in  this  period 
every  village  had  its  high  place,  located  by  preference  on  top 
of  a  hill.  No  objection  seems  to  have  been  raised  to  the 
representation  of  Yahweh  by  an  image,  for  Gideon  set  up 
an  ephod,  which  was  certainly  an  object  of  worship,  in  his 
native  place,  making  it  out  of  gold  taken  from  the  enemy 
(Judges  8  : 24-28).  At  Dan  was  also  a  molten  image  cap- 
tured from  its  original  owner.  Images  seem,  however,  not 
to  have  been  common  in  the  earliest  period  of  the  occupa- 
tion, and  it  is  likely  that  the  Canaanites  themselves  were 
usually  content  with  the  rude  stone  pillar,  such  as  the  one 
raised  by  Jacob  at  Bethel.  A  sacred  tree  was  pretty  sure 
to  be  planted  at  each  altar,  as  we  have  discovered.  With 
the  tree,  or  perhaps  in  some  cases  a  substitute  for  it,  was  a 
wooden  pole  or  post — the  asherah,  whose  origin  and  sig- 
nificance are  obscure. 

The  hostility  of  the  Deuteronomist  to  both  pillars  and 


76  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

asherahs  indicates  that  in  his  opinion  they  were  idolatrous. 
That  the  pillar  was  regarded  as  the  residence  of  the  god 
has  been  made  sufficiently  clear.  Whether  the  asherah  was 
dedicated  to  Ashtart,  as  has  sometimes  been  supposed, 
whether  it  was  the  impersonation  of  a  goddess  Asherah  of 
which  we  have  some  evidence,  or  whether  it  was,  like  the 
pillar  (ma^eba)}  dedicated  to  Yahweh  himself,  is  still  unde- 
termined. Poles  or  posts  seem  to  have  been  dedicated  to 
various  divinities  among  the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  and, 
as  we  read  of  prophets  and  sacred  vessels  of  Asherah  (or 
of  the  asherah)  among  the  Hebrews  (I  Kings  18  : 19;  II 
Kings  23  :  4),  the  idolatrous  nature  of  the  object  can  hardly 
be  doubted. 

The  earliest  form  of  worship  was  apparently  the  pres- 
entation of  a  gift,  the  material  of  which  was  applied  directly 
to  the  sacred  stone.  Thus  Jacob  poured  oil  upon  the  pillar 
at  Bethel  (Gen.  28  : 18).  Libations  were  poured  on  the 
altar  down  to  the  latest  times — usually  of  wine  which  re- 
joiced God  as  well  as  man.  The  idea  was  the  primitive  one 
that  the  divinity  residing  in  the  stone  absorbed  the  food  or 
drink.  In  the  case  of  animal  offerings  the  earliest  method 
was  to  pour  the  blood  on  the  sacred  stone,  and  this  was  done 
in  Israel  even  when  the  use  of  fire  became  customary.  In  the 
account  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  we  read  that  the  boy  was 
bound  and  laid  on  the  wood,  before  the  act  of  slaying.  The 
evident  purpose  was  that  the  blood  of  the  victim  should  flow 
directly  upon  the  stone.  In  the  account  of  Gideon's  sac- 
rifice it  is  said  that  he  brought  out  his  gift  and  laid  it  upon 
the  stone,  then  the  angel  touched  the  flesh,  and  fire  burst 
from  the  rock  and  consumed  the  offering  (Judges  6  : 21). 
This  is  a  poetic  way  of  describing  the  transition  from  fireless 
offerings  to  those  burnt  on  the  altar.  Originally  the  food 
was  simply  laid  upon  the  sacred  stone.  At  a  later  time  it 
was  sublimated  by  fire  and  the  divinity  partook  of  it  in  the 
form  of  a  sweet-smelling  savour. 

A  separate  order  of  priests  was  not  necessary  to  this  sort 
of  worship.  Any  man  could  sacrifice,  though  it  would  be 


THE  TRANSITION  77 

the  father  of  the  family  who  would  usually  officiate.  When 
Moses  made  a  solemn  covenant  the  sacrifice  was  performed 
by  the  young  men  of  the  clans  (Ex.  24  :  5).  Where  there 
was  a  sacred  object  of  value,  however,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  have  a  guardian  for  it.  Thus  at  Shiloh  the  ark  was 
in  the  keeping  of  Eli  and  his  sons,  and  Samuel,  the  attendant, 
slept  in  the  sanctuary  (I  Sam.  3:3).  When  Micah  made  an 
image  he  secured  a  priest  to  guard  it.  In  proportion  as  a 
sanctuary  became  a  place  of  resort  it  would  devolve  upon 
the  priest  to  keep  order  among  the  worshippers  and  see  that 
the  service  was  rightly  performed.  It  was  in  order  to  do 
this  that  Eli  sat  at  the  gate  of  the  temple.  The  reproach  di- 
rected against  his  sons  is  to  the  effect  that  instead  of  look- 
ing to  the  orderly  performance  of  the  service  they  thought 
only  of  their  own  advantage  (I  Sam.  2  : 12-17).  Hosea's 
complaint  against  the  tyranny  of  the  priests  (Hosea  5:1) 
receives  light  from  this  passage. 

The  primary  office  of  the  priest  was  not  to  offer  the  sac- 
rifices but  to  attend  to  the  oracle.  Saul  and  David  take  a 
priest  on  their  campaigns  that  they  may  know  the  will  of 
the  divinity.  This  will  is  revealed  by  means  of  the  ephod, 
whose  nature  and  working  are  still  obscure.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  the  use  of  this  implement  was  an  art  which 
required  special  knowledge  and  training.  The  man  who  had 
this  special  knowledge  was  called  a  Levite.  Keeping  this 
in  mind  we  understand  the  self-gratulation  of  Micah  on 
having  a  Levite  for  his  priest.  This  particular  Levite 
traced  his  descent  to  Moses,  and  Moses,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  primarily  the  minister  of  the  oracle  at  Kadesh.  While 
we  are  led  to  suppose  that  there  was  a  tribe  of  Levi  in  early 
days — which  in  some  obscure  way  was  nearly  extermi- 
nated— the  Levites  in  historic  times  are  rather  a  guild  than 
a  clan.  The  poem  ascribed  to  Moses  intimates,  as  does  the 
account  of  the  golden  calf,  that  the  members  of  this  guild 
had  disregarded  the  ordinary  ties  of  kindred  in  order  to 
devote  themselves  to  the  worship  of  Yahweh  (Deut.  33  :  9). 
For  this  devotion  they  are  rewarded  by  the  gift  of  the  Urim 


78  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

and  Thummim,  the  implements  of  the  oracle  (probably  used 
in  connection  with  the  ephod).  The  priesthood,  however, 
was  not  strictly  limited  to  the  guild  of  Levites,  for  the  people 
of  Kirjath-jearim  consecrated  one  of  their  own  number  to 
have  charge  of  the  ark  (I  Sam.  7:1),  and  David  appointed 
Zadok,  a  man  apparently  not  of  priestly  descent,  and  also 
made  priests  of  some  of  his  own  sons  as  well  as  a  certain 
Ira  the  Jairite  (II  Sam.  8  : 18;  20  :  25). 

With  the  increasing  magnificence  of  the  court  after  the 
building  of  the  temple,  the  Jerusalem  priests  enjoyed  larger 
emoluments  and  greater  prestige.  In  order  that  these  royal 
officers  should  be  relieved  of  the  menial  parts  of  the  service 
it  became  the  custom  for  the  kings  to  present  slaves  to  the 
sanctuary.  Ezekiel  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  protest 
against  this  custom,  on  the  ground  that  the  persons  thus 
brought  into  the  sacred  place  were  not  duly  consecrated. 
Certain  experiences  of  the  priests  themselves  led  them  to 
emphasise  this  matter  of  consecration.  Thus  one  Uzzah 
was  smitten  with  death  because  he  took  rash  hold  of  the 
ark  (II  Sam.  6:7).  Although  the  details  of  the  process  escape 
us  we  must  suppose  that  there  was  a  gradually  increasing 
stringency  in  drawing  the  line  between  the  sacred  and  the 
profane,  until  in  the  exile  it  was  resolved  not  to  allow  any 
but  duly  consecrated  persons  to  enter  the  sanctuary. 

Priests,  however,  were  not  the  only  persons  who  in  the 
earlier  period  enjoyed  the  special  favour  of  the  divinity. 
Special  gifts  of  sight  were  granted  to  some  men,  and  those 
who  received  them  were  called  seers.  Such  a  man  was  sup- 
posed to  tell  where  lost  articles  could  be  found.  Samuel  not 
only  satisfied  Saul  about  the  lost  asses,  but  also  informed 
him  of  the  divine  purpose  to  make  him  king.  It  is  probable 
that  Samuel  blessed  the  sacrifice  for  his  townsmen  not  be- 
cause he  was  priest  but  on  the  general  ground  that  he  was 
in  special  relations  with  Yahweh  as  his  seer  (I  Sam.  9  :  5-13). 
The  seer's  divine  equipment  was  sufficiently  defined  in  his 
title  of  "man  of  God."  Because  of  his  special  relation  to  the 
divinity  he  was  able  effectively  to  bless  or  to  curse.  Among 


THE  TRANSITION  79 

the  Arabs  at  the  present  day  certain  men  are  believed  to 
have  the  same  power.  They  are  sought  after  to  recover 
articles  lost  or  stolen,  to  detect  the  thief,  and  to  heal  the 
sick.1  The  title  of  seer  fell  into  disuse  in  later  times,  and 
the  Old  Testament  writer  who  gives  us  the  account  of 
Samuel  supposes  that  the  seer  and  the  prophet  were  the  same 
(I  Sam.  9:9).  But  the  prophet  was,  at  least  in  the  earlier 
period,  distinguished  by  his  abnormal  enthusiasm  and  also 
by  his  associating  himself  with  others  of  like  temperament  in 
a  religious  society  (I  Sam.  10  :  5-16;  19  :  18-20).  This 
enthusiasm  was  contagious  and  infected  the  bystanders  who 
thereupon  joined  in  the  religious  exercises  of  the  band  (music 
and  dancing),  even  becoming  so  frenzied  as  to  fall  down  in  a 
cataleptic  fit. 

The  reputation  of  madmen  given  the  prophets  by  the 
people  (II  Kings  9  :  11)  is  explicable  on  the  ground  of  these 
extravagant  manifestations.  Madness  was  thought  to  be 
possession  by  a  spirit  or  demon,  and  it  is  possible  that  in 
the  earlier  days  the  prophet  (nabi)  was  so  called  because 
possessed  by  the  divinity  of  revelation,  the  Babylonian 
Nebo.  In  the  period  of  which  we  have  record  the  Hebrews 
attributed  the  possession  to  the  spirit  of  Yahweh.  The 
spirit  was  the  organ  by  which  the  God  of  Horeb  was  able 
to  work  at  a  distance.  While  at  great  national  crises  the 
divinity  himself  came  on  the  thunder-cloud  to  help  his  people, 
his  influence  on  individuals  was  by  means  of  the  spirit. 
Thus  the  spirit  "clothed  itself"  with  Gideon  and  drove  him 
to  his  heroic  deed  (Judges  6  :  34);  it  impelled  Othniel 
(3  :  10),  and  afterward  stirred  or  rushed  upon  Samson  and 
Saul  (Judges  15  : 14;  14  :  6;  13  :  25;  I  Sam.  11  :  6).  The 
spirit  might  be  a  spirit  of  evil  in  that  it  wrought  evil  to 
men.  Yahweh  sent  a  spirit  of  evil  between  Abimelech  and 
his  subjects,  whose  mission  was  to  stir  up  strife  and  thus 
avenge  the  brothers  whom  Abimelech  had  slain  (Judges 
9  :  22  /.). 

The  best  illustration  of  this  belief  is  found  in  Saul  the 
1  Jaussen,  Coutumes  des  Arabes,  p.  386. 


80  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

King.  If  we  may  interpret  the  account  according  to  our 
lights  we  shall  conclude  that  the  unfortunate  man  was  af- 
flicted with  melancholia,  becoming  at  times  acute  mania. 
The  popular  explanation  would  be  that  he  was  possessed 
by  a  demon,  as  the  Arabs  at  the  present  day  call  an  insane 
man  majnun,  that,  is  possessed  by  a  jinnee.  The  piety  of 
the  Hebrew  writers,  which  ascribed  all  that  takes  place  to 
the  direct  action  of  Yahweh,  saw  the  cause  of  the  phenome- 
non in  a  spirit  sent  by  Yahweh,  an  evil  spirit  only  in  so  far 
as  it  was  an  instrument  of  harm  to  Saul  (I  Sam.  16  : 14/.). 
In  another  passage  we  read  that  Yahweh  did  not  hesitate 
to  deceive  men  by  the  spirit,  which  in  this  case  was  allowed 
to  become  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  the  prophets  in 
order  to  lure  Ahab  to  his  death  (I  Kings  22  :  21-23).  Since, 
according  to  this  representation,  the  spirit  assumes  a  dis- 
tinct personality  we  may  call  him  an  angel.  But  in  most 
cases  he  seems  more  like  an  effluence  from  Yahweh  than  a 
person  distinct  from  him.  Our  authors  did  not  take  pains 
to  define  their  idea  more  exactly.  What  now  interests  us 
is  that  this  theory  of  the  spirit  may  well  have  been  Canaan- 
itish  as  well  as  Israelite,  for  the  phenomena  of  prophetism 
seem  to  be  the  same  in  both  religions. 

The  result  of  the  process  we  have  been  studying  was  to 
amalgamate  the  religion  of  Israel  and  the  religion  of  Ca- 
naan. But  from  the  beginning  the  process  met  with  some- 
thing of  protest.  The  complex  civilisation  of  the  cultivated 
country  involved  evils  against  which  the  more  thoughtful 
of  the  desert-dwellers  revolted.  Evidence  of  this  is  given 
by  the  institution  called  the  Nazirate.  The  only  early  ex- 
ample is  that  of  Samson,  and  in  his  case  the  historicity  of 
the  account  is  not  above  suspicion.  As  we  now  read  it, 
the  hero's  mother  was,  during  her  pregnancy,  to  eat  nothing 
that  came  from  the  vine,  to  drink  no  wine  or  fermented 
drink,  and  was  to  avoid  all  that  was  ritually  unclean.  The 
purpose  was  to  devote  the  child  to  this  sort  of  abstinence 
during  his  prenatal  life.  He  himself  followed  the  same 
course  and  in  sign  of  his  devotion  he  let  his  hair  grow  long. 


THE  TRANSITION  81 

Similar  abstinence  is  narrated  of  Jonadab  ben  Rechab,  of 
whom  we  read  that  he  enjoined  upon  his  clan  not  to  eat 
anything  that  came  from  the  vine,  not  to  build  permanent 
houses,  and  not  to  engage  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil 
(Jer.  35  : 6-10).  The  reason  for  this  strict  rule  was  oppo- 
sition to  the  agricultural  life  and  devotion  to  the  simpler 
manners  of  the  desert.  Since  the  Rechabites  were  Kenites, 
that  is,  original  worshippers  of  Yahweh,  their  devotion  to 
the  ancestral  mode  of  life  was  really  devotion  to  the  an- 
cestral God.  In  the  time  of  Jehu  they  were  known  to  be 
members  of  the  strict  Yahweh  party  and  opposed  to  the 
Baal  of  Jezebel  and  her  family  (II  Kings  10  : 15-17).  The 
later  legislation  allows  Nazirites  to  consecrate  themselves 
for  short  periods  of  time,  but  in  the  case  of  Samson  the  vow 
is  assumed  to  be  lifelong. 

The  only  explanation  of  the  phenomena  is  to  recognise 
the  fact  that  to  the  strictest  worshippers  of  Yahweh  the 
vine  was  taboo,  and  this  was  because  it  was  sacred  to  the 
Baal  of  the  cultivator.  This  Baal,  then,  was  felt  to  be  hos- 
tile or  at  least  uncongenial  to  Yahweh.  The  rigorists  who 
took  Yahweh  seriously  could  not  adopt  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil,  since  this  was  under  the  patronage  of  the  Baals. 
The  opposition  was  heightened  by  the  Philistine  oppression 
when  Israel  was  rallied  against  its  enemies  by  leaders  who 
invoked  the  help  of  Yahweh.  The  history  of  the  period  is 
unfortunately  obscure,  but  the  appearance  of  the  enthusi- 
astic prophets,  and  the  Nazirate  of  Samson,  possibly  also  of 
Samuel,  indicate  a  revival  of  devotion  to  the  national  God. 
Saul  himself,  the  leader  of  the  revolution,  seems  to  have 
received  his  impulse  from  Samuel,  and  his  zeal  for  Yahweh, 
though  a  zeal  not  according  to  knowledge,  was  manifested 
by  his  attempt  to  exterminate  the  Gibeonites  because  they 
were  not  of  Israelite  blood.  That  the  national  movement 
was  a  religious  movement  is  indicated  by  the  title  "Anointed 
of  Yahweh"  given  to  Saul  and  afterward  to  David,  for 
unction  was  a  distinct  rite  of  consecration,  as  we  see  from 
the  story  of  Jacob  at  Bethel.  David's  reluctance  to  lay 


82  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

hands  on  the  "Anointed  of  Yahweh  "  arose  from  the  fact  that 
such  an  act  would  be  sacrilege.  The  sacred  character  of  the 
act  of  anointing  is  made  evident  also  by  the  sanctity  of  the 
person  by  whom  the  act  was  performed  (prophet  or  priest), 
by  the  place  where  it  was  performed  (usually  a  sanctuary), 
and  by  the  oil  itself  which  was  taken  from  the  sanctuary. 

The  conflicts  in  which  Israel  engaged  in  the  first  period 
of  the  monarchy  thus  served  to  emphasise  the  importance 
of  Israel's  God,  Yahweh.  David's  devotion  was  shown  by 
the  great  political  stroke  of  bringing  the  ark  to  Jerusalem. 
The  ark  had  never  been  connected  with  the  Baals.  It  was 
the  leader  of  Israel  in  the  desert  wandering  and  in  subse- 
quent battles.  Its  installation  at  Jerusalem  was  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  David  was  devoted  to  Yahweh 
and  relied  upon  him  to  support  the  throne.  This  is  intelli- 
gible when  we  remember  that  David's  tribe  was  more  nearly 
related  to  the  Kenites  than  were  those  in  the  northern  part 
of  the  country,  and  that  they  had  perhaps  assimilated  less 
of  the  Canaanitish  life  than  had  the  others.  Not  that  we 
should  think  of  Yahweh  as  the  God  of  Judah  who  was  forced 
upon  the  other  tribes  by  David,  for  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  tradition  which  connected  the  ark  with  Shiloh, 
and  in  the  time  of  David  Yahweh  was  already  naturalised 
at  Gibeon. 

Nor  can  we  suppose  that  David  was  a  monotheist.  He 
had  the  teraphim  in  his  house  in  his  early  days,  and  we 
hear  nothing  of  his  attempting  to  abolish  the  Canaanitish 
sanctuaries  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom.  The  most  that 
can  be  asserted  with  safety  is  that  by  the  establishment 
of  a  regular  cultus  at  Jerusalem,  under  the  direct  protec- 
tion of  the  royal  house,  Yahweh  was  given  a  certain  pre- 
eminence over  the  local  divinities.  Yahweh,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Jethro,  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  greatest  of 
the  gods.  Even  this  pre-eminence  seemed  to  be  endan- 
gered in  the  time  of  Solomon,  for  this  king  prided  himself 
on  being  cosmopolitan  in  his  tastes  and  beliefs.  Only  thus 
can  we  account  for  his  building  shrines  for  many  divini- 


THE  TRANSITION  83 

ties  in  Jerusalem  or  at  least  in  its  immediate  vicinity.  The 
present  text  evidently  endeavours  to  state  the  matter  in 
the  way  most  favourable  to  Solomon,  but  it  admits  that  he 
erected  sanctuaries  for  Chemosh  and  Melek  on  the  mount 
east  of  Jerusalem,  immediately  facing  the  temple,  "  and  so 
for  all  his  wives  who  burnt  incense  and  sacrificed  to  their 
gods  "  (I  Kings  11 :  4-8).  The  worship  was  not  confined  to 
the  foreign  wives  and  their  households,  for  Solomon  him- 
self took  part  in  it.  It  is  not  improbable,  therefore,  that 
foreign  deities  were  introduced  into  the  temple  itself.  Phoe- 
nician models  seem  to  have  been  followed  by  the  artisans 
who  erected  this  building,  and  the  mythological  imagery 
would  certainly  have  polytheistic  suggestions  for  the  wor- 
shipper. The  two  brazen  pillars  in  front  of  the  building 
might  be  regarded  as  maffeboth,  such  as  were  found  at  every 
sanctuary  of  Yahweh  in  this  period.  But  they  were  par- 
alleled by  the  two  pillars  which  stood  at  the  entrance  of 
the  sanctuary  of  Melkart,  in  Tyre,  and  by  the  two  in  the 
temple  of  the  Syrian  goddess  at  Hierapolis.  They  would 
naturally  be  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  people  at  large 
with  Baal  rather  than  with  Yahweh,  and  the  fact  that  they 
received  proper  names  would  imply  that  they  were  embodi- 
ments of  separate  divinities.1 

Attendant  divinities  are  the  cherubim  which  embellished 
the  inner  sanctuary  and  protected  the  ark  with  their  over- 
shadowing wings.  From  Ezekiel  we  know  that  these  were 
composite  animal  figures  like  the  winged  bulls  and  lions  of 
Babylon  and  the  sphinx  of  Egypt.  The  Yahwist  makes 
them  the  guardians  of  the  Garden  from  which  the  first  man 
was  expelled  (Gen.  3  : 24),  and  Ezekiel  also  stations  them 
in  paradise  (Ezek.  28  : 14,  16).  They  are,  therefore,  myth- 
ological figures,  and  to  this  extent  inconsistent  with  a  strict 
monotheism  such  as  we  attribute  to  the  Hebrews.  Further 
we  find  in  the  temple  court  the  great  sea,  which  is  something 

1  Their  names,  Jakin  and  Boaz,  are  not  yet  satisfactorily  explained 
and  have  perhaps  been  changed  so  as  to  disguise  their  original  sig- 
nificance. 


84  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

more  than  a  reservoir  for  the  use  of  the  priests.  Its  twelve 
bulls  represent  the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  and  t^ie  sea 
itself  is  a  symbol  of  the  celestial  store  of  waters  from  which 
come  the  rains. 

Consideration  of  all  the  phenomena,  then,  seems  to  author- 
ise us  in  saying  that  in  Solomon's  temple  we  have  a  picture 
of  the  amalgamation  of  elements  from  various  sources. 
The  chief  divinity  was  Yahweh,  but  he  was  confused  with 
the  Canaanite  Baal  and  was  attended  by  minor  divini- 
ties imported  from  Phoenicia,  Syria,  Babylon,  and  Egypt. 
Moreover,  the  temple  probably  stood  upon  the  spot  made 
sacred  by  the  earlier  inhabitants,  for  the  original  native 
rock,  the  summit  of  the  hill  on  which  the  fortress  was  built, 
would  be  the  spot  at  which  the  Jebusites  worshipped  the 
local  deity.  Of  jealousy  on  the  part  of  Yahweh  we  have 
as  yet  no  trace. 

The  division  of  the  kingdom  made  no  difference  in  the 
religious  beliefs  and  customs  of  the  people.  In  the  north- 
ern kingdom  the  monarchs  were  devoted  to  the  God  of 
Israel  and  fostered  his  worship  at  the  two  great  sanctuaries 
of  Bethel  and  Dan.  Bethel  was  of  venerable  antiquity,  its 
foundation  being  attributed  to  Jacob.  Dan  was  of  more 
questionable  origin,  having  been  founded  by  the  tribe  of 
Dan  when  they  captured  the  city  and  furnished  by  them 
with  an  image  taken  by  violence  from  its  owner.  Prob- 
ably the  site  in  each  case  was  sacred  before  the  Israelite  oc- 
cupation, the  one  at  Dan  being  located  at  a  copious  foun- 
tain, the  one  at  Bethel  showing  a  curious  rock  formation 
such  as  the  imagination  attributes  to  the  activity  of  the 
gods.1  Both  these  sanctuaries  were  redecorated  by  Jero- 
boam I  and  furnished  with  golden  bulls  as  objects  of  wor- 
ship. The  account  makes  it  clear  that  the  king  had  no 
idea  of  introducing  new  gods,  for  he  expressly  says  that  this 
is  the  God  who  led  Israel  out  of  Egypt  (I  Kings  12  :  28). 

1 A  description  of  the  site  is  given  by  Peters,  in  Studies  in  the  History 
of  Religion,  dedicated  to  Crawford  Howell  Toy  (New  York,  1912),  pp. 
239 /. 


THE  TRANSITION  85 

Yahweh  was  already  worshipped,  then,  under  the  image  of 
a  bull,  and,  in  fact,  this  is  clear  from  the  account  in  Exodus, 
which  condemns  the  usage,  for  the  significant  thing  in 
that  account  is  that  the  bull  (calf  it  is  called  in  contempt) 
was  made  by  Aaron,  the  father  of  the  legitimate  priest- 
hood (Ex.  32  : 2-4). 

At  the  same  time  this  worship  of  the  bull  is  the  plainest 
evidence  of  the  syncretism  which  we  are  discussing.  For 
it  is  evident  that  the  nomads,  who  had  only  sheep  and  goats, 
would  not  think  of  paying  homage  to  the  bull.  This  animal, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  so  necessary  to  the  husbandman  that 
its  worship  in  an  agricultural  community  is  inevitably  a 
part  of  agricultural  religion.  The  introduction  of  a  bull 
god  from  Egypt  is  not  probable,  for  we  know  that  Egyptian 
influence  is  not  traceable  in  the  early  religion  of  Israel.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  evidence  that  Adad,  the  storm  god 
of  Syria,  was  represented  riding  on  a  bull.  As  Yahweh, 
like  Adad,  was  a  storm  god,  it  would  be  easy  to  transfer  to 
him  the  attributes  of  Adad.  Moreover,  recent  excavations 
at  Samaria  have  brought  to  light  the  proper  name  Egelyo, 
meaning  Calf-of- Yahweh,1  parallel  to  the  Palmyrene  Egelbol, 
Calf-of-Baal.  Other  traces  of  bull-worship  in  Canaan  and 
Syria  have  been  found,  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  chief 
god  of  Heliopolis  (Baalbek)  was  a  bull  god.2  The  evidence 
seems  sufficient  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  the  identifi- 
cation of  Yahweh  with  the  bull  was  the  result  of  his  fusion 
with  Baal. 

It  was  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  this  union  of  Yahweh 
with  the  Canaanite  god  that  the  reaction  became  acute. 
Even  then  the  reaction  was  not  directed  against  the  Ca- 
naanite Baal  but  against  a  new  divinity.  Ahab  had  married 
a  Phoenician  princess  and  thus  allied  himself  closely  with 
the  Phoenician  court.  Jezebel  doubtless  thought  the  civi- 

1  Lidsbarski,  Ephemeris,  III,  pp.  153 /.;  cf.  Konig,  Geschichte  der  Alt- 
testamentlichen  Religion,  p.  210. 

2  Gressmann,  Altorientalische  Texte  und  Bilder  zum  Alien  Testamente 
(1909),  II,  p.  76. 


86  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

lisation  of  her  own  country  superior  to  that  of  the  Israelite 
peasants,  and  introduced  her  religion,  with  the  manners  of 
her  father's  court,  into  Samaria.  Her  own  god  was  the 
Baal  of  Tyre,  whose  proper  title  was  Melkart,  and  to  him 
a  sanctuary  was  erected  at  the  Israelite  capital;  and  here, 
we  may  suppose,  Ahab  himself  was  polite  enough  to  pay 
occasional  reverence.  The  opposition  of  the  people  was 
called  out  not  by  the  new  rites  but  by  new  methods  of  ad- 
ministration. The  old  Israelite  legal  precedents  were  dis- 
regarded by  the  foreign  woman,  for  she  suborned  perjury 
and  instigated  judicial  murder  in  order  to  gratify  her  hus- 
band's whim. 

The  reaction,  which  was  necessarily  political  as  well  as 
religious,  was  led  by  Elijah.  The  legends  which  have  at- 
tached themselves  to  his  name  do  not  obscure  his  character 
or  leave  us  in  any  doubt  as  to  the  kind  of  man  he  was.  He 
was  a  true  child  of  the  desert,  native  of  that  transjordanic 
region  where  the  people  retained  much  of  the  old  nomadic 
life  and  thought.  He  was  possessed  by  the  religious  passion 
which  makes  a  man  intolerant  of  any  gods  but  his  own  and 
leads  him  to  fierce  action  where  that  god's  rivals  invade 
his  territory.  We  may  attribute  to  him  the  first  formula- 
tion of  the  statement,  so  frequent  in  later  times,  that  Yah- 
weh  is  a  jealous  God.  It  is  evident  that  Elijah  had  no 
prejudice  against  the  other  gods  on  their  own  territory.  He 
went  to  Sidon,  where  the  very  Baal  whom  he  opposed  in 
Israel  had  his  home,  and  remained  quiet  under  his  protec- 
tion. His  theory  was  evidently  that  each  nation  has  its 
own  god  and  that  for  Israel  this  God  is  Yahweh.  And  to 
this  was  added  the  belief  that  Yahweh  is  the  protector  of 
the  individual  Israelite  against  the  aggressions  of  unscru- 
pulous rulers,  and  that  he  is  the  avenger  of  blood  when 
blood  has  been  unrighteously  shed.  The  alternative  which 
he  set  before  the  people  was  plain:  "If  Yahweh  be  God  serve 
him;  if  Baal,  then  serve  him! "  The  disciples  of  the  great 
prophet  were  reinforced  by  the  clan  of  Jonadab  ben  Rechab, 
already  known  as  zealots  for  Yahweh,  and  the  result  was 


THE  TRANSITION  87 

the  extermination  of  the  house  of  Omri  and  the  seating  of 
Jehu  on  the  throne. 

With  the  extermination  of  the  party  of  the  Phoenician 
Baal  the  attempt  to  introduce  new  divinities  into  Israel 
seemed  to  come  to  an  end.  But  Yahweh  continued  to 
unite  the  attributes  of  Israel's  war-god  with  those  of  the 
Canaanite  Baal.  The  festivals  were  those  of  the  agricul- 
tural life;  the  sanctuaries  continued  the  old  orgiastic  wor- 
ship of  Canaan.  Morals  were  on  the  plane  of  tribal  custom 
tempered  by  the  decision  of  the  king.  The  claim  of  blood- 
revenge  was  stronger  than  the  king's  peace,  as  we  see  from 
Joab's  murder  of  Abner.  The  customs  of  war  were  bar- 
barous. The  Judaites  cut  off  the  thumbs  and  great  toes  of 
their  captive  Adonibezek,  as  he  himself  had  been  accustomed 
to  do  with  his  captives.  The  foreigner  was  entitled  to  no 
consideration  except  where  a  formal  treaty  had  been  entered 
into.  The  Danites  sought  for  no  pretext  when  they  at- 
tacked Laish  (Judges  18).  Rahab  betrayed  her  country- 
men and  was  highly  praised  for  the  act  (Joshua  6  :  22-25). 
Assassination  was  one  of  the  means  of  ridding  the  land  of 
a  tyrant,  and  the  assassin  became  a  hero  (Judges  3).  It 
continued  to  be  the  custom  to  devote  a  hostile  city  or  tribe 
to  the  divinity  and  to  carry  out  the  vow  by  extermination, 
and  in  the  belief  of  the  people  this  was  required  by  Yahweh 
himself  (I  Sam.  15). 

The  evidence  of  archaeology  shows  that  human  sacrifice 
was  practised  by  the  Canaanites,  and  it  certainly  was  not 
foreign  to  the  Israelites,  though  whether  they  adopted  it 
from  their  predecessors  or  whether  it  was  a  part  of  the 
desert  religion  is  not  yet  clearly  made  out.  That  the  god 
Melek  was  worshipped  in  this  way  we  have  already  noticed, 
and  we  have  noted  also  the  probability  that  he  was  in  some 
cases  at  least  merged  in  Yahweh.  But  that  not  all  cases 
of  human  sacrifice  can  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  Melek  seems 
evident.  The  thought  of  human  sacrifice  to  Yahweh  as 
something  grateful  to  him  underlies  the  story  of  Jephthah's 
daughter.  The  grief  of  the  people  narrated  in  this  connec- 


88  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

tion  did  not  at  all  arise  from  the  thought  that  such  an 
extraordinary  fulfilment  of  a  vow  was  contrary  to  the  re- 
ligion of  Yahweh  but  from  the  fact  that  a  family  was  ex- 
tinguished by  the  death  of  the  virgin.  The  calamity  consisted 
in  this — that  neither  Jephthah  nor  his  daughter  would  have 
any  one  to  pay  honour  to  them  after  their  death.  The  case  of 
Agag  was  somewhat  different;  he  was  devoted  to  death  by  the 
ban  placed  on  his  people  by  Saul.  His  death  "before  Yah- 
weh" was  therefore  a  gratification  to  the  divinity,  in  that  it 
assured  him  that  the  vow  had  been  carried  out,  but  whether 
the  slaying  was  regarded  as  a  sacrifice  is  not  clear.  Prob- 
ably it  was,  for  the  Deuteronomist  speaks  of  the  burning  of 
"devoted"  property  as  a  whole  burnt  offering  to  Yahweh 
(Deut.  13  :  17).  The  foundation-sacrifice  alluded  to  in 
connection  with  the  rebuilding  of  Jericho  (I  Kings  16  :  34) 
may  not  have  been  offered  to  Yahweh.  But  there  is  no 
question  that  his  claim  on  the  first-born  was  understood  to 
require  sacrifice  of  infants.  Ezekiel  believed  that  this  had 
been  commanded  in  the  early  period:  "Moreover  I  gave 
them  statutes  which  were  not  good  and  ordinances  in  which 
they  should  not  live,  and  I  polluted  them  by  their  own  gifts 
in  that  they  caused  to  pass  through  the  fire  all  that  opened 
the  womb,  that  they  might  know  that  I  am  Yahweh" 
(Ezek.  20:25/.).  The  prophet  believed  that  the  sacri- 
fice was  commanded  by  Yahweh  as  a  punishment  of  the 
people.  The  testimony  of  Jeremiah  on  this  subject  has 
already  been  considered,  and  comparison  of  the  passages 
shows  that  the  people  construed  literally  the  command: 
"The  first-born  of  thy  sons  shalt  thou  give  unto  me"  (Ex. 
22  :  28). 

The  sacrifice  of  children  by  other  Semites  is  well  at- 
tested. The  Carthaginians  are  said  to  have  offered  two 
hundred  children  from  their  noblest  families  when  hard 
pressed  by  their  enemies.  The  case  of  Mesha,  king  of 
Moab,  is  parallel.  This  king,  when  besieged,  sacrificed  his 
first-born  son  on  the  wall  of  the  city  and  thus  roused  his 
god  to  activity  so  that  the  besiegers  were  forced  to  retreat 


THE  TRANSITION  89 

(II  Kings  3  :  27).  Excavation  in  Palestine  has  brought  to 
light  a  great  number  of  infant  remains,  for  the  most  part 
those  of  new-born  infants.  Their  proximity  to  the  altars 
indicates  that  they  were  sacrificed,  though  not  all  of  them 
have  passed  through  the  fire.  The  prevalence  of  the  cus- 
tom in  Israel  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  Ahaz,  king  of 
Judah,  sacrificed  his  son  (II  Kings  16  :  3),  and  Manasseh, 
who  revived  the  ancient  religious  customs,  included  this 
among  them  (21  :  6).  The  story  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac 
and  the  acceptance  of  a  ram  as  substitute  for  the  child 
(Gen.  22)  is  therefore  a  protest  against  rites  actually  prac- 
tised in  the  time  of  the  writer,  that  is,  in  the  eighth  century 
B.C. 

What  becomes  clear,  as  we  trace  the  history  of  the  twelfth, 
eleventh,  and  tenth  centuries  B.  C.,  therefore,  is  the  trans- 
formation of  Israel's  religion  under  the  influence  of  the  agri- 
cultural life.  The  nomads  brought  with  them  the  rite  of 
circumcision,  which  they  continued  to  observe,  and  the  fes- 
tival of  the  Passover,  which  was  now  united  with  the  agri- 
cultural observance  of  unleavened  bread.  They  adopted 
the  harvest  festivals  of  the  earlier  inhabitants.  Local  sea- 
sons of  rejoicing  are  mentioned  at  Shiloh  (Judges  21),  at 
Bethlehem  (I  Sam.  20  :  29),  and  at  Shechem  (Judges  9  :  27). 
The  enthusiastic  exercises  of  the  prophets  who  raved  about 
the  Canaanite  altars  were  adopted  by  the  devotees  of  Yah- 
weh  (I  Sam.  10  : 9-12).  Sitting  under  one's  own  vine  and 
fig-tree,  with  none  to  molest  or  make  afraid,  became  the  ideal 
of  the  Israelite.  The  old  tribal  organisation  persisted  but 
was  gradually  overshadowed  by  the  kingship,  which  re- 
ceived the  divine  sanction.  Yahweh  was  worshipped  as  in 
some  sense  the  patron  deity  of  Israel,  but  he  often  shared 
his  sanctuary  with  the  local  Baals  or  more  frequently  took 
on  their  features.  The  sanctuaries  were  the  original  rock 
altars  of  the  Canaanites,  and  at  some  of  them  molten  images 
represented  the  God,  though  for  the  most  part  the  object 
of  reverence  was  the  primitive  stone  pillar.  The  more  or- 
nate ritual  of  the  Canaanites  was  taken  over,  marked  at 


90  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

certain  seasons  by  lavish  indulgence  in  eating  and  drinking 
and  by  immoral  excesses.  This  was  the.  state  of  things 
when  the  early  narratives  were  composed  to  which  we  must 
now  give  attention. 


CHAPTER  V 
RELIGION   IN   THE   EARLY   LITERATURE 

IT  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  a  considerable  literature 
existed  in  Israel  from  the  time  of  Solomon  at  least.  But 
from  that  and  earlier  times  only  fragments  have  come  down 
to  us.  It  was  apparently  in  the  ninth  century  that  it  oc- 
curred to  religiously  minded  men  to  write  a  connected  story 
of  the  earlier  traditions  of  their  people.  Their  work  has 
been  preserved  embedded  in  the  books  of  the  Hebrew  canon 
from  Genesis  to  II  Samuel  inclusive.  Critical  analysis  re- 
stores these  early  documents  to  us  in  the  J  and  E  strata 
of  the  Pentateuch,  and  in  the  hero  stories  of  Judges  and 
Samuel.  The  religious  motive  of  the  authors  is  evident: 
they  desire  to  record  the  evidences  of  Yahweh's  goodness 
to  his  people  in  the  past  and  thus  to  stir  the  gratitude  and 
stimulate  the  fidelity  of  their  contemporaries.  The  authors 
sympathised  with  the  prophetic  party  which,  under  the  lead 
of  Elijah,  was  strenuous  in  opposing  the  innovations  of  Jez- 
ebel. In  their  opinion  the  best  vindication  of  Yahweh  was 
the  record  of  his  dealings  in  the  past.  They  therefore  em- 
bodied in  their  narratives  some  of  the  ancient  poems  which 
glorified  the  God  of  Israel.  By  common  consent  the  oldest 
of  these  is  the  Song  of  Deborah.  This  is  a  song  of  triumph 
composed  to  commemorate  a  signal  victory  over  the  Canaan- 
ites.  The  victory  is  ascribed  to  the  direct  intervention  of 
Yahweh  who,  from  his  distant  home  in  the  south,  came  on 
the  thunder-cloud  to  deliver  his  people.  The  various  tribes 
are  praised  or  blamed  according  to  the  part  which  they 
took  or  refused  to  take  in  the  conflict.  Patriotism  and  re- 
ligion are  one — to  take  the  part  of  Israel  is  to  come  to  the 

91 


92  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

help  of  Yahweh.  The  conclusion  is  a  vigorous  curse  against 
the  enemies  of  Israel  as  the  enemies  of  Yahweh:  "So  let  all 
thine  enemies  perish,  Yahweh!  But  let  them  that  love  thee 
be  as  the  sun  in  its  strength!"  (Judges  5  : 31.) 

Similar  religious  and  patriotic  faith  is  revealed  by  the 
testament  of  Jacob  (Gen.  49).  The  author  will  encourage 
the  tribes  by  giving  them  a  sense  of  Yahweh's  protecting 
care  or  else  warn  them  of  the  danger  of  going  contrary  to 
his  righteous  will.  The  low  estate  of  Simeon  and  Levi  is 
attributed  to  their  cruelty,  upon  which  Yahweh  has  visited 
a  penalty.  Reuben  has  lost  his  birthright  because  of  an  act 
of  lawlessness  committed  by  the  ancestor  of  the  tribe.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  tribes  most  prosperous  are  the  objects 
of  Yahweh's  favour.  Joseph  is  under  the  direct  protection 
of  the  God  of  Bethel,  who  strengthens  him  for  war  and  gives 
him  the  blessings  of  fruitfulness:  "Blessings  of  the  heaven 
above,  blessings  of  the  depth  below,  blessings  of  the  breast 
and  of  the  womb."  Here  Yahweh  is  evidently  the  God  of 
the  rains,  of  the  underground  reservoir,  and  of  animal  fruit- 
fulness.  So  he  appears  in  the  other  ancient  poem,  the  one 
called  the  Blessing  of  Moses.  In  this  the  felicity  of  Ephraim 
is  ascribed  to  Yahweh,  to  whom  is  addressed  the  prayer: 
"The  best  that  the  sun  brings  forth,  and  the  best  that  the 
moon  causes  to  spring  up,  the  treasures  of  the  ancient  moun- 
tains and  the  precious  things  of  the  eternal  hills,  the  best  of 
the  earth  and  its  fulness  and  the  good  pleasure  of  him  that 
dwells  in  the  bush,  come  upon  the  head  of  Joseph  and  on 
the  crown  of  the  crowned  one  among  his  brothers  "  (Deut. 
33  : 14-16).  The  favour  of  Yahweh,  however,  is  not  ex- 
tended to  Judah,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Jerusalem 
temple  is  in  possession  of  this  tribe,  for  the  author  is  able 
only  to  pray  that  Yahweh  may  fight  for  him  and  restore  him 
to  the  unity  of  the  tribes.  Yahweh,  therefore,  is  present  in 
the  northern  kingdom  and  at  the  local  sanctuaries.  Zebu- 
Ion  and  Issachar  are  happy  in  that  they  are  in  possession 
of  sacred  places  to  which  they  invite  the  neighbouring  clans : 
"They  call  peoples  to  the  mountains;  there  they  offer  right- 


RELIGION   IN  THE   EARLY   LITERATURE  93 

eous  sacrifices"  (v.  19).  Levi  is  especially  blessed  (in  sharp 
contrast  to  what  is  said  in  the  older  poem)  in  that  he  is  in  full 
possession  of  the  priesthood :  "  Thou  hast  given  to  Levi  thy 
Thummim,  and  thy  Urim  to  thy  beloved,  whom  thou  didst 
try  at  Massah,  didst  contend  with  at  Meribah;  who  said  of 
his  father:  'I  know  him  not';  he  considered  not  his  brothers 
nor  his  children;  for  they  obeyed  thy  commandment,  and 
kept  thy  instruction;  they  teach  Jacob  thy  testimonies, 
and  Israel  thine  oracle;  they  bring  sweet  savour  to  thy 
nostrils  and  whole  burnt  offerings  on  thine  altar." 

The  tone  of  this  poem  and  by  consequence  the  tone  of 
the  writer  who  included  it  in  his  narrative  is  in  sharp  con- 
trast with  that  which  we  find  a  little  later  in  the  written 
prophets.  The  poem  shows  an  optimistic  faith  in  the  God 
of  Israel.  This  God  is  not  thought  of  as  dwelling  in  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem  but  manifesting  himself  at  the  many 
sanctuaries  of  the  northern  kingdom.  The  tribe  or  guild 
of  Levi  is  not  the  Jerusalem  priesthood  but  the  company 
of  ministers  of  the  high  places.  Yahweh  smiles  upon  them 
and  upon  the  nation  for  whom  they  minister:  "There  is 
none  like  the  God  of  Jeshurun,  who  rides  on  the  heavens 
for  thy  help,  and  in  his  majesty  on  the  clouds.  Thy  refuge 
is  the  eternal  God,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms; 
he  drove  the  enemy  before  thee  and  commanded  to  destroy 
them"  (vss.  26/.). 

The  poems  from  which  I  have  cited  have  been  preserved 
for  us  by  the  two  Pentateuchal  writers  whom  we  have 
called  J  and  E  and  by  the  author  who  collected  the  hero 
stories  of  the  book  of  Judges.  The  motive  which  led  to 
the  preservation  of  the  poems  moved  the  writers  also  in 
their  choice  of  material  from  early  tradition.  Three  classes 
may  be  distinguished  in  this  material.  There  is,  first,  that 
which  makes  up  the  greater  part  of  the  book  of  Genesis 
and  in  which  the  forefathers  of  the  nation  are  the  actors; 
then  the  account  of  the  wilderness  wandering  or  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  national  life;  and,  finally,  the  stories  of  the 
heroes  who  secured  Israel  in  possession  of  the  land  of  Ca- 


94  THE  RELIGION  OP  ISRAEL 

naan.  For  the  first  period  the  material  must  have  been 
drawn  from  folk-lore  and,  as  we  shall  see,  from  early  my- 
thology. The  authors  had  a  much  larger  material  to  draw 
from  than  they  actually  put  on  record,  as  is  seen  from  some  of 
their  briefer  notices.  For  example,  we  are  told  how,  as  Jacob 
went  on  his  way,  the  angels  of  God  met  him  and  he  said: 
"This  is  God's  camp;  so  they  call  the  name  of  the  place 
Camp"  (Mahanaim,  Gen.  32  :2/.).  This  is  a  reference  to 
the  local  tradition  which  accounted  for  the  name  of  the 
place;  the  author  might  have  given  it  at  length,  as  he  did 
so  many  others,  had  he  been  so  minded.  In  like  manner 
the  account  of  Jacob's  purchase  of  a  piece  of  ground  at 
Shechem  (Gen.  33  : 18/.),  the  death  of  Deborah  (35  : 8) 
and  of  Rachel  (35  : 19),  might  have  been  expanded,  but  the 
author  dismisses  them  with  brief  mention.  The  reason  is 
probably  that  they  did  not  serve  his  religious  purpose. 

In  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  this  religious  purpose  is  two- 
fold. First,  the  stories  set  forth  the  divine  guidance  of  Israel, 
beginning  with  the  forefathers;  secondly,  they  show  these 
same  forefathers  as  models  of  piety  and  obedience.  When 
we  come  to  the  wilderness  wandering  the  same  thought  of 
divine  guidance  is  prominent,  but  the  people  are  not  models 
of  obedience.  Rather  they  are  held  up  in  their  frequent 
unbelief  and  murmuring  as  warnings  for  later  generations. 
In  the  lives  of  the  heroes  again  we  see  the  power  of  Yahweh 
manifested  in  giving  his  people  victory  and  securing  them 
in  possession  of  the  land  which  he  had  promised  to  the 
fathers.  It  is  evident  that  the  writers  are  not  interested 
in  history  for  its  own  sake  but  for  its  revelation  of  the 
power,  the  love,  and  the  forbearance  of  Israel's  God.  The 
contrast  between  these  narratives  and  such  a  piece  of  plain 
historical  writing  as  we  find  in  the  account  of  Absalom's 
rebellion  is  sufficiently  striking  to  show  what  I  mean. 

The  Pentateuchal  writers  take  their  material  from  a  great 
variety  of  sources,  and  some  of  it  is  of  great  antiquity.  \  Our 
present  knowledge  enables  us  to  say  that  a  part  of  it  comes 
from  Babylonia,  a  part  of  it  bears  the  marks  of  the  early 


RELIGION   IN  THE  EARLY   LITERATURE  95 

nomadic  or  half-nomadic  life  of  the  Israelites,  another  part  is 
the  product  of  the  soil  of  Canaan,  and  in  some  cases  at  least 
there  may  be  Egyptian  influence.  A  question  which  has 
been  much  mooted  of  late  years  is:  How  much  of  this  mate- 
rial can  properly  be  called  mythological?  The  answer  will 
depend  on  our  definition  of  myth.  If  by  a  myth  we  under- 
stand a  story  which  pictures  the  processes  of  nature  as 
actions  of  anthropomorphic  gods,  there  are  no  myths  in  the 
Old  Testament.  The  story  of  the  twelve  labors  of  Her- 
acles, if  it  be  a  poetic  representation  of  the  progress  of  the 
sun  through  the  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  is  a  myth  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  word.  But  it  has  no  parallel  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  tendency  to  discover  ancient 
divinities  in  the  persons  of  the  patriarchs — Joseph  a  sun- 
god,  Jacob  a  moon-god — has  no  warrant  in  our  present  text. 
Even  if  it  could  be  proved  that  some  of  the  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  these  patriarchs  are  parallel  to  some  things  narrated 
of  the  sun-god  and  the  moon-god,  we  must  still  recognise  the 
fact  that  to  the  writers  Joseph  wras  not  a  divinity  of  any 
kind,  but  a  man  of  Hebrew  race  whose  life  was  like  that  of 
any  other  man  except  for  the  distinct  providential  guidance 
which  it  illustrates.  Abraham  may  have  been  a  local  di- 
vinity once  worshipped  at  Hebron.  In  the  narratives  we  are 
considering  he  is  only  the  ancestor  of  Israel,  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary piety,  no  doubt,  but  still  a  man. 

Except  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  (to  which  we  shall 
return  presently)  myths  do  not  form  any  important  part  of 
the  material  with  which  our  authors  deal.  Legends  or 
sagas,  however,  are  distinctly  traceable.  A  saga  is  a  story 
which  represents  a  nation  or  tribe  as  an  individual.  The 
growth  of  saga  in  Israel,  as  among  the  Arabs,  was  helped 
by  the  fact  that  the  name  of  a  clan  or  tribe  was  often 
used  as  a  collective,  that  is,  as  though  it  were  the  name  of 
an  individual.  Thus  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges,  Judah 
is  said  to  have  invited  his  brother  Simeon  to  come  with  him 
into  his  portion.  The  narrator  is  well  aware  that  Judah  and 
Simeon  are  clans  and  not  men,  but  the  language  might  lead 


96  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  reader  to  think  of  them  as  individuals.  In  many  cases 
therefore  when  the  Hebrew  writers  used  the  tribal  names, 
we  may  be  sure  that  they  were  aware  that  they  were  speak- 
ing of  the  collective  body.  But  in  other  cases  they  were  not 
clearly  conscious  of  the  historical  nucleus  which  was  con- 
cealed under  the  tradition,  because  the  popular  imagination 
had  already  personified  the  clans  as  individuals,  and  had 
told  their  adventures  as  those  of  so  many  ancestral  heroes. 
It  was  doubtless  the  universal  belief  in  this  period,  and 
indeed  until  recent  times,  that  the  tribes  were  actually 
descended  from  the  eponyms  whose  names  they  bore.  For 
our  present  purpose,  however,  this  is  not  of  prime  impor- 
tance. What  interests  us  is  not  the  family  history  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob,  but  the  ideas  of  the  writers  of  this 
history. 

The  lesson  that  these  writers  have  most  at  heart  is  that 
Israel  became  the  people  of  Yahweh  in  the  earliest  period  by 
a  divine  act  of  choice;  Yahweh  was  God  of  Israel  because 
he  was  the  God  of  Abraham.  Moreover,  this  God  revealed 
his  righteous  character  by  his  actions  in  relation  to  these 
ancestors  of  the  people.  The  pledge  of  Yahweh  gave  Is- 
rael its  title  to  the  land  of  Canaan.  Even  when  the  land  was 
in  possession  of  strangers  Yahweh  walked  with  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  protected  their  rights.  The  plan  of  God, 
thus  traced  back  to  the  earlier  period,  gave  the  sort  of  assur- 
ance to  believers  which  later  was  derived  from  an  abstract 
theory  of  the  divine  election.  The  transfer  of  local  legends 
to  Yahweh  is  made  in  order  to  emphasise  the  main  lesson. 
The  divinity  who  appeared  to  Joshua,  originally  one  of 
numerous  local  deities,  as  we  have  seen,  now  appears  as  the 
angel  warrior  who  leads  Israel's  armies  against  the  older 
inhabitants.  The  mysterious  being  who  wrestled  with 
Jacob  is  identified  with  the  God  of  Israel,  for  Jacob  says: 
"I  have  seen  God  [Elohim]  face  to  face."  .The  name  of  God 
here  used  is  the  one  regularly  denoting  the  God  of  Israel 
in  the  document  E.  The  polytheism  of  these  early  stories 
is  thus  somewhat  violently  changed  to  monotheism,  or 


RELIGION   IN  THE   EARLY   LITERATURE  97 

rather  to  monolatry,  for,  as  we  have  had  occasion  to  notice, 
it  did  not  occur  to  the  Hebrews  at  this  stage  of  their  develop- 
ment to  deny  the  existence  of  other  gods  than  Yahweh. 
The  most  interesting  case  of  transfer  is  the  one  which  re- 
lates how  the  local  demon  fell  upon  Moses  and  would  have 
killed  him  for  intruding  upon  his  territory  had  not  Zipporah 
rescued  her  husband.  The  cruel  night  demon  who  thus 
throttles  strangers  has  little  in  common  with  the  covenant 
God  who  sent  Moses  to  deliver  his  people,  yet  the  account 
identifies  them,  calling  the  hostile  being  by  the  name  Yahweh. 

It  is  probable  that  the  authors  in  adapting  these  stories 
to  the  thought  of  their  own  time  have  made  more  extensive 
changes  than  at  first  sight  appears.  The  three  who  appear 
to  Abraham  and  eat  with  him  may  have  been  three  divinities 
in  the  early  form  of  the  story  (Gen.  18).  They  may  even 
have  been  the  numina  who  inhabited  the  sacred  trees  under 
which  Abraham  pitched  his  tent.  Other  cases  where  the 
angel  of  Yahweh  appears  seem  originally  to  have  spoken  of 
Yahweh  himself.  The  angel  who  speaks  to  Hagar  was,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  spirit  who  inhabited  the  well;  in  the 
present  form  of  the  story  he  appears  as  the  angel  of 
Yahweh,  and  at  the  close  of  the  account  we  discover  that 
it  was  Yahweh  himself  (Gen.  16  :  13).  The  story  of  the 
discovery  of  Bethel  plainly  indicates  that  the  divinity  dwelt 
in  the  sacred  stone.  But  the  author  of  the  story  in  its 
present  form  assumes  that  Yahweh  dwells  in  heaven,  and 
that  the  spot  was  sacred  because  the  ladder  rested  there  by 
which  one  could  ascend  to  the  Presence. 

The  authors  we  are  discussing,  therefore,  with  all  their 
piety  toward  the  old  legends  which  they  preserve  for  us, 
mark  a  distinct  advance  in  religious  thought.  Although 
Yahweh  is  localised  in  Canaan,  yet  he  is  not  bound  to  the 
soil.  He  is  able  to  protect  Joseph  in  Egypt;  he  goes  with 
Jacob  in  his  wanderings  and  encourages  him  to  go  down  to 
Egypt,  promising  him  protection  (Gen.  46  :  4).  He  appears 
to  Abraham  in  Mesopotamia  and  calls  him  to  emigrate  to 
a  new  land.  Yahweh  therefore  is  able  to  act  within  the 


98  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

jurisdiction  of  other  gods.  This  is  most  strikingly  brought 
out  in  the  account  of  the  exodus,  where  Yahweh  enters  into 
a  formal  conflict  with  the  gods  of  Egypt  and  shows  himself, 
as  Jethro  says,  greater  than  all  gods.  The  narrators  did  not 
reflect  logically  on  the  omniscience  of  Yahweh;  enough  for 
them  that  in  every  emergency  Yahweh  was  able  to  protect 
his  own.  Even  the  Egyptians  are  made  to  recognise  that 
Joseph  is  inspired  by  God  (Gen.  41  : 32-39),  but  this,  of 
course,  they  might  do  and  still  believe  in  their  own  divinities. 

We  must  expect  to  find  anthropomorphism  at  this  stage 
of  religious  thinking.  Even  the  latest  of  the  Pentateuchal 
writers  thinks  of  Yahweh  as  existing  in  human  form,  for 
there  is  no  reason  to  understand  the  statement  that  man 
was  made  in  the  image  of  God  and  after  his  likeness  in  any 
other  than  the  literal  sense.  In  the  older  narratives  we 
read  of  Yahweh's  eye,  his  hand,  his  mouth,  his  ears,  his 
lips,  his  nostrils.  A  striking  passage  tells  us  that  after  an 
interview  with  Moses  Yahweh  refused  to  show  his  glorious 
form  to  the  prophet,  but  he  added:  "When  my  glory  passes 
by  I  will  put  thee  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock  and  cover  thee  with 
my  hand  until  I  have  passed  by;  and  then  I  will  take  away 
my  hand  and  thou  shalt  see  my  back,  but  my  face  shall  not 
be  seen"  (Ex.  33  : 22/.).  The  allegorists,  no  doubt,  attempt 
to  explain  away  the  meaning  of  the  passage,  but  its  original 
sense  must  be  plain.  Equally  human  is  the  passionate 
nature  of  the  divinity,  which  comes  to  view  in  many  pas- 
sages. His  anger  burns  against  his  enemies,  and  he  keeps 
hatred  in  his  heart  throughout  the  generations,  as  in  the  feud 
with  Amalek  (Ex.  17  : 16).  He  does  not  always  see  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  and  has  sometimes  to  repent  of  what  he 
has  done.  Seeing  the  violence  of  the  generation  before  the 
deluge,  he  repented  that  he  had  made  man  upon  the  earth, 
and  it  pained  him  to  the  heart  (Gen.  6:6).  Saul's  disobedi- 
ence leads  Yahweh  to  confess  to  Samuel:  "I  repent  that  I 
made  Saul  king"  (I  Sam.  15  : 11). 

Even  in  his  dealings  with  Israel  Yahweh  has  occasion  to 
change  his  mind.  The  murmuring  of  the  people  causes  him 


RELIGION  IN  THE   EARLY  LITERATURE  99 

to  threaten  them  with  destruction,  but  he  yields  to  Moses* 
intercession.  The  plea  of  Moses  is  to  the  effect  that  the 
Egyptians  will  hear  what  has  been  done,  and  will  say  that 
Yahweh  has  not  been  able  to  fulfil  his  promise.  It  is  this 
very  human  thought  of  the  damage  to  his  reputation  which 
finally  prevails  with  the  divinity  (Num.  14  : 13-16).  In  an- 
other passage,  where  the  situation  is  similar,  Moses  argues 
that  the  Egyptians  will  say  that  Yahweh  had  no  purpose  of 
mercy  toward  Israel,  but  brought  the  people  into  the  wilder- 
ness on  purpose  to  destroy  them  (Ex.  32  : 12/.).  This  idea 
of  Yahweh's  care  for  his  reputation  was  entertained  as  late 
as  the  time  of  Ezekiel.  The  account  in  Exodus  is  significant 
as  showing  that  Yahweh  can  be  moved  by  his  affection  for 
individual  men.  It  is  when  Moses  offers  to  be  blotted  out 
of  Yahweh's  book  that  he  finally  yields  to  the  entreaty  and 
spares  Israel.  Elsewhere  his  mercy  is  shown  for  the  sake  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  (Ex.  32  : 13  and  32). 

Doubtless  the  body  of  Yahweh  was  conceived  of  as  ethe- 
real, not  material  like  ours.  It  is  a  body  of  luminous  mat- 
ter, a  "glory,"  so  that  the  offerings  must  be  sublimated  by 
fire  in  order  that  he  may  receive  the  agreeable  odor  (Gen. 
8  :  20-22).  He  is  gratified  also  by  libations  of  wine  and  oil, 
and  even  to  a  comparatively  late  period  he  was  thought  to 
absorb  the  blood  poured  upon  the  altar.  That  he  origi- 
nally dwelt  in  the  sacred  stone  we  have  already  remarked, 
but  in  the  period  before  us  he  is  gradually  dissociating  him- 
self from  such  material  objects  and  taking  up  his  residence 
in  the  sky.  Thus  he  goes  up  after  speaking  to  the  patriarchs, 
or  if  he  wishes  to  see  what  is  going  on  on  the  earth  he  comes 
down  to  investigate  (Gen.  11  :  5,  7,  and  apparently  18  :  20/.). 
But  this  point  of  view  is  not  consistently  held. 

Certain  ethical  attributes  are  predicated  of  Yahweh, 
though  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  the  conceptions 
somewhat  defective  from  our  more  advanced  point  of  view. 
Yahweh  is  first  of  all  faithful  to  his  promises.  It  is  the 
purpose  of  these  narratives  to  emphasise  this  fidelity.  Love 
for  the  fathers  moves  him  to  be  gracious  to  the  descendants. 


100  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

This  affection  rises  or  sinks  to  partiality  at  times.  Pharaoh 
and  Abimelech  are  rebuked  for  their  attempts  upon  Sarah, 
but  nothing  is  said  to  Abraham  concerning  his  prevarication, 
which  was  the  occasion  of  the  trespass  (Gen.  12  :  10-20  J; 
20  :  1-18  E;  the  same  story  is  told  of  Isaac,  26  :  6-11J). 
The  incident  is  even  made  of  advantage  to  the  patriarch, 
for  each  monarch  gives  him  rich  presents.  The  belief  in 
the  unwavering  favour  of  Yahweh  toward  Israel  is  well 
brought  out  in  the  story  of  Balaam.  Although  a  foreigner, 
this  seer  has  power  to  destroy  men  by  his  curse  and  to  give 
them  prosperity  by  his  blessing.  Hence  the  king  of  Moab 
sends  for  him  to  pronounce  a  curse  on  Israel.  But  Yahweh 
cannot  be  induced  to  curse  his  chosen  people,  and  the 
inclination  of  the  seer  is  overborne  so  that  he  utters  a 
blessing: 

"God  is  not  a  man  that  he  should  lie, 
Nor  the  son  of  man  that  he  should  repent; 
Shall  he  promise  and  not  perform? 
Or  speak  and  not  keep  his  word? 
Behold  to  bless  is  my  mission, 
Therefore  I  bless  and  do  not  hold  back. 
Evil  is  not  seen  in  Jacob, 
Nor  guilt  in  Israel 
Yahweh  his  God  is  with  him, 
And  the  shout  of  a  king  is  his."     (Num.  23 :  19-21.) 

In  saying  that  Yahweh  does  not  repent  the  author  was 
conscious  of  no  inconsistency  though  he  had  said  that  in 
some  cases  Yahweh  does  actually  change  his  mind.  What 
he  is  here  affirming  is  the  fidelity  of  Yahweh  to  his  chosen 
people.  And  while  we  may  suppose  that  the  election  of 
the  nation  is  an  act  of  free  grace,  yet  at  the  same  time  an 
ethical  justification  for  it  is  found  in  the  corruption  of  the 
older  inhabitants.  Yahweh's  delay  in  giving  Abraham  full 
possession  of  Canaan  is  accounted  for  on  the  ground  that 
the  guilt  of  these  nations  is  not  yet  sufficient  to  require  their 
expulsion  (Gen.  15  :  16).  The  local  legend  which  related 
the  destruction  of  Sodom  is  made  to  teach  a  lesson  concern- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY 

ing  moral  corruption  and  its  just  punishment.  It  is  the 
fear  of  God's  justice  which  keeps  men  from  sin.  Abraham 
excuses  himself  for  deceiving  Abimelech  on  the  ground  that 
he  thought  there  was  no  fear  of  God  in  the  place  and  con- 
sequently no  moral  restraint.  The  story  shows  that  even 
the  Philistines  were  amenable  to  this  motive,  and  Abime- 
lech pleads  his  innocence  of  evil  intent  as  a  reason  why  he 
should  not  be  punished  for  his  trespass.  The  gentile,  in  fact, 
turns  the  tables  upon  Abraham  by  reproaching  him  for  bring- 
ing him  into  unwitting  sin  and  thus  endangering  his  king- 
dom by  exposing  it  to  the  wrath  of  God  (Gen.  20  :  9-11). 
The  most  distinct  expression  of  this  connection  of  religion 
and  moral  conduct  is  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  who  refuses  the 
solicitations  of  his  mistress  because  he  will  not  do  a  great 
sin  in  the  sight  of  God  (Gen.  39  :  9). 

Even  from  earlier  times  Yahweh  was  the  guardian  of 
social  custom  and  the  avenger  of  blood.  He  watched  over 
oaths,  also,  and  punished  their  violation.  Almost  all  the 
Hebrew  authors,  therefore,  account  for  calamity  by  suppos- 
ing it  a  punishment  for  sin.  The  extermination  of  the  house 
of  Ahab,  for  example,  was  regarded  as  a  penalty  for  the 
sins  of  this  king.  This  is  not  to  say  that  the  punishment  is 
always  fitted  to  the  crime.  Yahweh  sometimes  seems  ca- 
pricious or  arbitrary  in  his  dealings  with  his  subjects.  When 
the  men  of  Beth-shemesh  rejoiced  at  the  coming  of  the  ark 
one  of  their  families  did  not  share  the  joy.  Yahweh,  in  anger 
at  their  indifference,  smote  seventy  of  their  number  with 
death  (I  Sam.  6  :  19,  according  to  the  Greek  text).  Uzzah, 
although  a  consecrated  person,  was  smitten  with  sudden 
death  because  he  rashly  took  hold  of  the  ark,  and  this  with 
the  best  of  motives1  (II  Sam.  6  :  6/.). 

Yahweh's  action  is,  therefore,  often  unaccountable.  David 
cannot  explain  Saul's  wrath  against  him  except  on  the 
ground  of  a  slander  uttered  by  men  or  of  a  suspicion  in- 

1  In  like  manner  the  man  who  took  hold  of  the  Palladium  at  Ilium 
was  smitten  with  blindness,  though  his  motive  was  to  save  the  sacred 
object  from  the  fire  (Reinach,  Cultes,  Mythes  et  Religions,  II,  p.  316). 


?  >  ?  c-t*   *H  .  ,;T&E*  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

stilled  into  the  king's  mind  by  Yahweh  (I  Sam.  26  :  19). 
Yahweh  even  incites  David  to  commit  a  sin  in  order  that  he 
may  have  an  excuse  for  punishing  the  people  (II  Sam.  24). 
He  leads  Rehoboam  to  give  a  foolish  answer  to  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  tribes  in  order  to  punish  Solomon  in  the 
person  of  his  son  (I  Kings  12  :  15).  But  in  most  cases,  as 
has  been  said,  the  motive  is  distinctly  ethical.  Thus  David's 
violation  of  the  marriage  rights  of  his  subject  Uriah  is 
punished  because  the  king  has  despised  Yahweh  (II  Sam. 
12  :  9-13).  The  calamity  of  Eli's  house  came  because  the 
priests  despised  the  offerings  and  thus  insulted  the  divinity 
(I  Sam.  2  : 17;  3  :  13).  The  line  is  not  clearly  drawn  be- 
tween offence  against  an  abstract  moral  code  and  personal 
affronts  against  the  deity.  In  the  case  of  Pharaoh  the  hard- 
ening of  his  heart,  which  is  ascribed  to  Yahweh's  direct  ac- 
tion, is  a  means  of  vindicating  the  power  of  Israel's  God 
(Ex.  4  :  21;  10  :  1  J).  Samson's  love  for  a  Philistine  woman 
is  Yahweh's  way  of  humiliating  his  enemies  (Judges  14  :  4). 
The  very  partiality  thus  shown  toward  the  favourites  of 
the  God  is  a  reason  for  appealing  to  him  in  time  of  stress. 

As  between  members  of  the  nation,  however,  the  appeal 
is  made  to  the  justice  of  Yahweh.  "  If  a  man  sin  against  a 
man  God  will  intervene,"  says  Eli  in  expostulating  with  his 
sons  (I  Sam.  2  :  25).  This  is  the  force  of  the  imprecation: 
"God  do  so  to  me  and  more  also  if  I  do  not  thus  and  so." 
The  taker  of  the  oath  calls  on  God  to  punish  in  case  he  is 
unfaithful,  and  against  the  deity,  if  offended,  there  is  no  ap- 
peal. "If  a  man  sins  against  God,  who  will  judge  the  mat- 
ter?" says  Eli.  Cases  of  what  we  should  call  poetic  justice 
are  favourite  material  for  these  authors.  Thus  Ahab's  son 
is  killed  at  the  vineyard  of  Naboth  (II  Kings  9  :  24-26). 
Joab's  guilt  comes  upon  his  own  head  although  he  is  too 
powerful  to  be  punished  by  David  (I  Kings  2  :  32).  Adoni- 
bezek  recognises  the  justice  of  God  in  meting  out  to  him 
the  same  suffering  which  he  had  inflicted  upon  his  captives 
(Judges  1:7).  It  is  by  the  decree  of  Yahweh  that  Absalom 
adopts  the  advice  of  Hushai  and  thus  brings  ruin  upon  him- 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  103 

self  (II  Sam.  17  :  14).  The  evil  spirit  who  stirred  up  strife 
between  Abimelech  and  the  men  of  Shechem  was  the  instru- 
ment by  which  Yahweh  returned  the  sin  of  Abimelech  on 
his  own  head  (Judges  9  :  23).  David  leaves  his  cause  in 
Yahweh's  hand  just  because  he  trusts  in  the  righteousness 
of  his  God  to  vindicate  him  (I  Sam.  24  :  13).  He  even  re- 
fuses to  take  vengeance  when  it  is  in  his  power,  not  only  on 
Saul  but  afterward  on  Shimei  (II  Sam.  16  :  10-12).  The 
fate  of  Nabal  is  construed  as  God's  justice  acting  on  behalf 
of  David  in  a  case  where  the  hero  had  refrained  from  taking 
vengeance  for  himself  (I  Sam.  25  :  39). 

In  these  examples  we  have  not  confined  ourselves  to  the 
narratives  of  the  Pentateuchal  J  and  E,  but  have  given  il- 
lustrations from  other  literature  whose  point  of  view  is 
similar.  Looking  more  narrowly  at  the  earlier  strata  of 
the  Pentateuch  we  notice  first  that  the  Yahwist  did  not 
hesitate  to  make  use  of  material  from  foreign  sources.  For 
it  must  be  clear  that  his  account  of  the  creation  and  of  the 
deluge  are  not  purely  Israelite  in  origin.  The  deluge  story 
is  known  to  be  Babylonian;  the  account  of  the  creation  (the 
one  contained  in  Gen.  2  :  4  to  3  :  24)  has  not  yet  been  traced 
to  a  Babylonian  source  and  probably  came  from  Damascus. 
It  presents  the  primeval  chaos,  not  as  a  mixture  of  water 
and  earth  such  as  is  indicated  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
but  as  a  desert,  an  arid  plain  in  which  nothing  could  live 
for  lack  of  water.  On  this  soil  Yahweh  first  sent  a  mist  to 
soften  it  and  then  planted  it  with  trees  pleasant  to  the  eye 
and  good  for  food.  And  since  a  garden  in  the  desert  quickly 
reverts  to  wilderness  unless  it  has  care,  man  was  made  to  be 
the  gardener.  Man,  as  in  a  Babylonian  document,1  is  made 
of  clay  and  animated  by  Yahweh's  breath.2 

It  seems  clear  that  our  author  did  not  rise  to  the  concep- 

1  The  Gilgamesh  epic.     Parallels  are  found  also  among  the  Egyp- 
tians and  among  the  Greeks.    Ungnad,  Das  Gilgamesh  Epos,  pp.  8  and 
101. 

2  In  one  Babylonian  myth  the  kinship  of  man  with  the  gods  is  in- 
dicated by  making  Bel  cut  off  his  own  head  and  create  man  by  mingling 
the  blood  with  earth. 


104  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

tion  of  creation  out  of  nothing  and,  indeed,  that  he  did  not 
mean  to  describe  the  creation  of  the  universe.  The  crude 
material  existed  before  Yahweh  laid  hand  upon  it,  but  it 
needed  his  vivifying  water  before  it  could  be  made  habit- 
able. The  phenomena  of  the  oasis  which  presents  a  mass 
of  living  green  to  the  eye  wearied  by  the  intolerable  glare 
of  the  desert  must  have  given  rise  to  the  story.  Where  this 
paradise  was  located  we  need  not  inquire.  Since  the  ex- 
pulsion of  man  it  is  no  longer  accessible  to  mortals,  though 
the  cherubim  show  that  it  is  still  the  garden  of  Yahweh. 
Our  present  interest  is  to  notice  the  vivid  anthropomorphism 
of  the  story.  Yahweh  inhabits  the  garden  and  takes  his 
pleasure  in  walking  there  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  He  is  sur- 
prised at  Adam's  hiding  himself,  and  questions  him  to  find 
out  the  reason.  He  threatens  man  with  death  on  the  day 
in  which  he  eats  of  the  forbidden  tree,  and  then  neglects  to 
carry  out  the  threat.  Above  all,  he  is  jealous  of  man's  as- 
piring to  the  rank  of  a  god,  or  rather  he  discovers  that  man 
has  reached  that  rank  and  fears  that  he  may  aspire  further 
and  become  immortal.  Hence  the  expulsion  from  the  garden 
and  the  stationing  of  the  cherubim  to  guard  the  tree  of  life. 
This  jealousy  of  the  divinity  is  shown  in  another  story  pre- 
served by  this  author — the  story  of  the  tower,  according  to 
which  Yahweh  fears  that  men  will  not  be  restrained  from 
the  most  lofty  ambitions  unless  extraordinary  measures  are 
taken  against  them  (Gen.  11  :  1-9).  Parallels  in  Greek  lit- 
erature will  occur  to  every  reader. 

Although  this  author  shows  a  theology  very  primitive  in 
many  of  its  features,  yet  he  has  reflected  on  some  of  the 
fundamental  problems  of  human  life.  He  finds  the  lot  of 
the  cultivator  a  hard  one — compelled  as  he  is  to  wring  his 
subsistence  from  an  ungrateful  soil.  He  is  perplexed  by  the 
difficult  parturition  of  woman,  so  different  from  the  easy 
delivery  of  animal  mothers.  He  must  account  for  the  ser- 
pent's abnormal  figure  and  mode  of  progression,  all  the  more 
astonishing  in  view  of  the  animal's  cunning.  This  nar- 
rative, therefore,  comes  from  the  first  social  philosopher, 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  105 

painfully  impressed  by  the  problems  of  human  life,  and  com- 
pelled to  account  for  them  by  an  act  of  God,  which  was 
the  just  punishment  for  an  act  of  disobedience  on  the  part 
of  man.  Probably  in  the  early  myth  which  he  has  adapted 
to  his  purpose  the  serpent  was  a  divinity.  He  is  now  re- 
duced in  power  and  made  unable  to  resist  the  sentence  im- 
posed by  Yahweh,  though  not  too  impotent  to  plot  against 
him.  That  the  garden  is  a  mythological  survival  seems 
evident  from  what  has  been  said  of  its  being  the  residence 
of  the  divinity.  Yahweh  appears  as  the  owner  of  the  soil 
to  which  he  has  obtained  title  by  irrigation  and  cultivation. 
He  shows,  therefore,  the  features  of  the  Semitic  Baal,  the 
god  of  agriculture,  who  gives  or  withholds  the  crops.  So 
late  as  the  time  of  Ezekiel  we  find  allusions  to  this  garden 
of  God. 

Ezekiel  addresses  the  king  of  Tyre  thus:  "Thou  wast 
in  Eden  the  garden  of  God;  every  precious  stone  was  thy 
covering,  the  sardius,  the  topaz,  the  diamond,  the  beryl, 
the  onyx,  the  jasper,  the  sapphire,  the  emerald  and  the  car- 
buncle. .  .  .  On  the  day  thou  wast  created  thy  dwelling 
was  with  the  cherubim;  in  the  midst  of  them  I  set  thee. 
Thou  wast  on  the  mountain  of  God,  walkedst  in  the  midst  of 
the  sons  of  God"  (Ezek.  28  : 13/.).  We  can  hardly  doubt 
that  the  prophet  had  in  mind  the  story  from  which  the 
author  of  Genesis  has  drawn.  One  thing  comes  out  more 
clearly  in  Ezekiel's  text;  this  is  that  the  garden  was  located 
on  the  great  mountain  of  the  north,  where,  according  to  the 
Babylonians  and  other  nations,  the  gods  had  their  residence, 
like  the  Olympus  of  the  Greeks.  But  our  author  was  less 
interested  in  these  details  than  in  the  relation  of  man  to 
Yahweh,  and  the  human  lot  of  toil  and  suffering.  For  this 
he  tries  to  account,  and  for  the  enmity  which  has  always 
existed  between  men  and  serpents. 

In  the  same  way  in  which  the  story  of  Eden  explains  the 
fate  of  mankind  by  a  transgression  of  its  first  father,  the 
story  of  Cain  accounts  for  the  nomad  life  of  a  portion  of  the 
race.  Doubtless  a  local  saga,  current  in  Palestine  and  mo- 


106  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

tived  by  the  mode  of  life  of  the  Kenites,  has  here  been  pre- 
served for  us.  It  reflects  the  attitude  of  the  cultivator 
toward  the  Bedawy.  The  poverty  of  the  desert  compared 
with  the  abundance  which  the  farmer  enjoys  makes  the 
latter  believe  that  the  desert  life  was  adopted  by  Cain  be- 
cause he  had  been  driven  out  of  the  cultivated  country  in 
punishment  for  crime.  The  religious  side  of  the  story  comes 
out  in  the  representation  that  expulsion  from  the  cultivated 
country  is  expulsion  from  the  presence  of  Yahweh,  as  was 
believed  by  David.  The  blood  shed  in  the  land  of  Yahweh 
cries  to  him  for  vengeance  and  does  not  cry  in  vain. 

The  division  of  society  indicated  by  this  story  is  into 
three  classes.  Abel  is  a  shepherd  and  his  offering  is  the 
one  acceptable  to  God.  This  is,  therefore,  the  calling  pre- 
ferred by  the  author.  Cain  is  at  first  a  farmer,  but  is  com- 
pelled to  become  a  nomad.  He  is  the  earlier  representative 
of  the  class  to  which  Ishmael  belonged — the  robber  class — 
whose  hand  is  against  every  man.  The  shepherd  is  repro- 
duced in  the  patriarchs,  although  the  transition  to  cul- 
tivators is  hinted  at  in  the  case  of  Isaac,  who  sowed  the  soil 
and  reaped  a  hundredfold  because  Yahweh  blessed  him 
(Gen.  26  :  12).  Joseph  sees  himself  and  his  brothers  bind- 
ing sheaves  in  the  field,  another  indication  that  the  author 
thought  of  the  patriarchs  as  cultivators.  The  explanation 
is  that  the  Yahwist  reflected  the  condition  of  things  in  the 
border  of  the  desert,  where  the  shepherd  is  becoming  a 
cultivator  but  is  not  yet  closely  attached  to  the  soil. 

Yahweh  is  a  God  at  hand  and  not  a  God  afar  off.  He 
therefore  reveals  himself  to  his  chosen  ones  either  by  the- 
ophanies  or  by  dreams.  Such  dreams  may  come  even  to 
gentiles  like  Abimelech  and  Pharaoh.  But  they  are  most 
frequently  sent  to  Israel.  Jacob  receives  one  at  Bethel  and 
thus  discovers  the  sacredness  of  the  place.  Where  Yahweh 
reveals  himself  once  he  will  probably  reveal  himself  again. 
So  the  sanctuaries  become  places  of  incubation.  Solomon 
went  to  Gibeon  in  order  to  seek  a  revelation,  and  this  came 
to  him  in  a  vision  of  the  night.  It  is  the  hope  of  Jacob's 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  107 

descendants  that  Yahweh  will  speak  to  them  at  the  sanc- 
tuary where  he  once  spoke  to  the  great  ancestor  of  the 
nation.  The  chief  sanctuaries  of  the  land  were  founded  be- 
cause of  some  revelation  of  the  divinity.  The  earliest  legis- 
lation assumes  that  Yahweh  may  reveal  himself  at  any 
time  and  any  place,  and  that  the  place  will  thereby  become 
a  sanctuary  at  which  sacrifice  may  be  brought  and  find  ac- 
ceptance (Ex.  20  :  24). 

The  best  commentary  on  this  command  is  found  in  the 
stories  of  the  patriarchs  that  we  have  been  considering. 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  when  they  receive  a  revela- 
tion, at  once  erect  an  altar  and  call  upon  the  divine  name 
(Gen.  12  :  7;  26  :  25;  35  :  1).  That  many  of  the  sacred 
places  were  ancient  Canaanitish  places  of  worship  we  have 
already  had  occasion  to  notice.  But  this  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  the  popular  conception  was  that  Yahweh 
might  come  near  to  a  man  at  any  time  and  that  then  the 
proper  thing  to  do  was  to  consecrate  the  place  and  make  it  a 
place  of  sacrifice.  For  sacrifice  was  the  known  and  recog- 
nised method  of  approaching  the  divinity.  The  calling  on 
the  name  of  Yahweh  was  the  way  in  which  he  was  invited 
to  partake  of  the  gift.  The  practical  result  was  to  estab- 
lish sanctuaries  at  innumerable  sites,  so  that  every  village 
had  at  least  one. 

Since  the  earliest  decalogue  prohibits  molten  images  of 
Yahweh  we  may  suppose  that  in  this  period  the  reaction 
against  Canaanitish  religion  had  already  set  in.  And  one 
of  the  local  sagas  preserved  to  us  confirms  this  impression, 
at  least  so  far  as  Canaanitish  morals  are  in  question.  This 
is  the  story  of  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  (Gen. 
19  J).  This  was  in  origin  simply  a  local  saga  which  at- 
tempted to  account  for  the  formation  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
The  Yahwist  makes  it  an  eloquent  protest  against  the  cor- 
ruption of  Canaanitish  manners,  which  would  even  violate 
the  rights  of  the  guest  in  order  to  gratify  unnatural  lust. 
The  justice  of  Yahweh  would  not  tolerate  such  practices, 
and  to  the  religious  mind  the  sea  became  a  standing  witness 


108  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

to  this  fact.1  That  Israel  itself  was  not  free  from  such  vices 
is  indicated  in  another  narrative,  and  this  shows  the  prac- 
tical intention  of  the  author. 

In  spite  of  the  protest  against  molten  images  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  one  allusion  to  the  golden  bull  of  Bethel  seems 
to  have  survived  in  the  early  literature,  and  that  one  not 
hostile.  In  the  Testament  of  Jacob,  now  embodied  in  the 
work  of  J,  we  read: 

"By  the  hands  of  the  Bull  of  Jacob, 
By  the  name  of  the  Shepherd,  the  Stone  of  Israel; 
By  the  God  of  thy  father— he  will  help  thee, 
By  El-Shaddai— he  shall  bless  thee."     (Gen.  49  :  24 /.) 

If  this  reading  be  correct  the  reference  is  to  the  two  sacred 
objects  at  Bethel,  the  sacred  stone  attributed  to  Jacob  and 
the  golden  bull  of  Jeroboam.  The  author  of  the  poem  can 
hardly  have  been  acquainted  with  the  prohibition  of  molten 
images.  The  compiler  in  adopting  the  poem  may  have 
interpreted  the  language  as  poetic  imagery  only,  or  he  may 
have  condoned  the  image  at  Bethel  because  of  its  associa- 
tion with  the  most  venerable  sanctuary  of  the  northern 
kingdom. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  story  of  the 
deluge  adopted  by  J  comes  from  Babylonia.  And  at  the 
date  we  have  assigned  to  this  author  we  must  recognise  the 
probability  that  Babylonian  literature  was  making  its  way 
to  the  west.  What  interests  us  here  is  not  the  closeness 
of  the  parallel  between  the  Babylonian  and  the  Hebrew 
account,  but  the  way  in  which  the  Hebrew  writer  has  re- 
moved the  original  polytheism.  Instead  of  the  many  gods 
and  their  unseemly  quarrels  we  have  Yahweh  alone  sitting  in 
judgment  on  mankind  and  inflicting  punishment  for  their 
corruption.  The  anthropomorphism  undoubtedly  remains 
— Yahweh  repents  that  he  has  made  man;  he  shuts  the 
door  after  Noah;  he  smells  the  sweet  savour  of  the  sacrifice 
and  is  moved  by  it  never  again  to  destroy  mankind.  But 

1  On  the  numerous  parallels  in  folk-lore,  see  Gunkel,  Genesis,3  p.  214. 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  109 

throughout  the  story  he  remains  the  only  God  and  it  is  he 
who  does  his  will  in  heaven  and  on  earth. 

That  our  author  is  more  than  a  mere  compiler  is  shown 
by  the  use  he  makes  of  the  little  bit  of  mythology  concerning 
the  marriage  of  the  sons  of  God  with  the  daughters  of  men 
(Gen.  6  :  1-8).  We  have  already  noticed  that  this  was 
originally  a  story  of  divine  beings  who  took  human  wives, 
begetting  giants  like  the  Titans  of  Greek  mythology.  The 
skill  of  the  Yahwist  is  seen  in  the  way  in  which  he  makes 
this  fragment  lead  up  to  the  story  of  the  deluge.  These 
giants  are  not  only  prodigious  in  strength  but  prodigious 
also  in  wickedness.  They  bring  about  such  a  state  of  things 
that  only  by  their  destruction  can  the  earth  be  cleansed. 
The  deluge  receives  thus  an  ethical  motive,  and  the  divin- 
ities of  the  early  text  are  made  wholly  subject  to  Yahweh. 

Yahweh's  power  is  further  illustrated  by  the  story  of  the 
tower  of  Babel  (Gen.  11  : 1-9).  This  seems  to  be  a  folk- 
story  which  circulated  among  the  desert  tribes  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Babylon.  The  great  temple  of  Marduk  attracted 
their  attention,  since  it  was  a  conspicuous  feature  of  their 
landscape.  Wondering  at  the  shape  of  the  tower  they  sup- 
posed that  it  had  never  been  completed  and  that  it  was 
arrested  by  the  act  of  a  god.  When  they  ventured  into 
the  city,  moreover,  their  ears  were  assailed  by  a  polyglot 
mixture  of  tongues.  This  also  they  thought  the  result  of 
a  divine  interposition.  As  in  the  other  material  we  have 
considered,  the  polytheism  of  the  original  account  has  dis- 
appeared though  the  frank  anthropomorphism  remains. 
Yahweh  goes  down  to  see  what  is  going  on;  he  fears  that 
mankind  will  become  too  powerful  unless  he  intervenes; 
he  finds  unity  of  effort  to  be  the  secret  of  men's  strength, 
and  he  therefore  disunites  them  by  confounding  their  speech. 
After  this  they  are  unable  to  proceed  with  their  high  de- 
signs. Whether  according  to  the  original  account  men 
actually  planned  to  invade  the  heavens  and  so  to  storm  the 
seat  of  the  gods,  we  can  no  longer  make  out.  Some  par- 
allels in  other  religions  lead  us  to  suspect  this.  If  it  were 


110  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

so,  the  author  has  toned  down  the  story  so  as  to  preserve 
the  dignity  of  Yahweh. 

The  religious  interest  of  all  these  authors  is  seen  in  their 
treatment  of  the  covenant  between  Yahweh  and  Israel. 
Historically,  this  covenant  was  entered  into  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Moses.  But  faith  antedated  it  and  connected  it  with 
Abraham.  The  story  of  its  solemnisation  given  by  the  Yah- 
wist  is  interesting  because  of  its  analogies  in  Semitic  prac- 
tice to-day.  The  account  in  Genesis  says  that  Abraham 
was  instructed  to  slay  a  cow,  a  goat,  a  ram,  a  dove,  and  a 
pigeon.  The  two  halves  into  which  the  animals  were  cut 
were  laid  apart,  and  after  the  sun  had  gone  down,  Yahweh, 
in  the  form  of  a  burning  torch,  walked  between  the  pieces. 
We  are  not  told  that  Abraham  also  walked  between  the 
pieces,  though  that  was  probably  the  primitive  idea.  Among 
the  Arabs  east  of  the  Jordan  it  is  still  customary  to  sacri- 
fice an  animal  when  a  treaty  is  made.  The  body  of  the 
slain  animal  is  cut  in  two  and  the  parts  are  suspended  on 
two  stakes  before  the  tent  door.  The  parties  then  pass 
between  them.1  The  idea  as  interpreted  by  those  who  take 
part  in  the  rite  is  that  the  blood  of  the  victim  will  drive 
away  evil.  Our  author  does  not  reflect  on  the  reason  for 
the  rite.  He  makes  Yahweh  conform  to  the  custom  of  the 
times,  a  custom  to  which  we  find  a  reference  as  late  as  the 
time  of  Jeremiah  (Jer.  34  :  18;  cf.  Gen.  15  : 17). 

The  covenant  with  Abraham  thus  narrated  binds  Yahweh 
to  give  Abraham's  descendants  possession  of  Canaan  but 
says  nothing  of  obligations  undertaken  by  the  patriarch  in 
return.  It  must  be  obvious  that  some  such  obligations 
formed  a  part  of  the  agreement  between  Yahweh  and  Israel 
which  these  writers  really  have  in  mind.  Historically,  the 
covenant  was  entered  into  in  the  time  of  Moses,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  see  that  the  authors  we  are  studying  regarded 
it  as  a  real  covenant,  an  agreement  by  which  each  party 
bound  itself  to  certain  specific  things.  On  the  part  of  Yah- 
weh there  was  an  undertaking  to  give  Israel  possession  of 
1  Jaussen,  Coutumes  des  Arabes,  p.  362. 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  111 

the  promised  land;  on  the  part  of  Israel  there  was  a  defi- 
nite undertaking  to  give  a  part  of  the  produce  of  the  land 
to  Yahweh.  The  obligation  is  formulated  in  ten  commands 
to  which  the  people  promise  obedience,  and  this  decalogue 
in  its  most  primitive  form  contains  the  following: 

Thou  shalt  worship  no  other  God. 

Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  molten  gods. 

The  feast  of  unleavened  bread  shalt  thou  keep. 

All  that  open  the  womb  are  mine. 

Six  days  shalt  thou  work  but  on  the  seventh  day  thou  shalt  rest. 

Three  times  in  the  year  shall  all  thy  males  appear  before  God. 

Thou  shalt  not  offer  the  blood  of  my  sacrifice  with  leavened  bread. 

Neither  shall  the  sacrifice  of  the  passover  remain  all  night  until  the 

morning. 
The  first  of  the  fruits  of  thy  ground  shalt  thou  bring  to  the  house  of 

Yahweh  thy  God. 
Thou  shalt  not  boil  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk.1 

The  appropriateness  of  such  a  series  of  commands  for  an 
agricultural  people  needs  no  demonstration.  It  expressly 
recognises  Yahweh  as  God  of  the  soil,  to  whom  the  first- 
fruits  belong.  The  three  feasts  which  are  enjoined  are  con- 
nected with  the  harvest.  At  each  of  these  the  farmer  is 
to  appear  at  the  sanctuary,  recognising  Yahweh  as  the  giver 
of  the  grain,  the  wine,  and  the  oil.  The  God  of  animal 
fruitfulness  is  honoured  by  the  gift  of  the  firstlings  of  cattle 
and  even  by  the  consecration  of  the  first-born  of  men.  The 
idea  of  religion  here  presented  is  that  which  prevailed  in 
Israel  during  its  most  flourishing  period,  as  is  shown  by 
the  testament  of  Jacob.  Worship  is  the  presentation  of 
tribute  to  the  God  of  the  soil  with  the  expectation  of  thus 
securing  his  continued  favour.  Jacob  voices  the  idea  of 
these  authors  when  he  vows  that  if  Yahweh  will  give  him 

1  Ex.  34.  Several  of  the  commands  are  given  also  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  Covenant  code,  Ex.  23  : 10-19.  The  present  text  of  Ex.  34 
gives  twelve  commands,  but  the  explicit  declaration  that  the  ten  words 
were  written  on  tables  of  stone  indicates  that  the  original  number  was 
ten,  and  tradition  speaks  uniformly  of  a  decalogue. 


112  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

bread  to  eat  and  clothing  to  wear  Yahweh  shall  be  his  God, 
and  he  will  give  a  tenth  of  his  gains  to  him.  The  covenant 
we  are  considering  recognises  the  obligation  assumed  by  the 
great  ancestor  of  the  people  and  formulates  it  in  these 
commands. 

The  idea  of  the  sacrificial  service  as  something  gratifying 
to  Yahweh  and  the  means  of  securing  his  favour  was  the 
one  against  which  the  prophets  found  themselves  obliged  to 
protest.  The  writers  we  are  considering  show  that  it  was 
not  a  mere  vulgar  error  but  that  it  was  held  by  the  most 
thoughtful  Israelites  in  this  period.  To  the  Yahwist,  cer- 
tainly, sacrifice  was  the  natural  method  of  approach  to  the 
divinity.  For  this  reason  he  dates  it  in  the  earliest  times. 
Abel's  presentation  of  the  firstlings  of  the  flock  secures  the 
favour  of  Yahweh,  whereas  Cain's  vegetable  offering  is  not 
regarded.  In  the  time  of  Noah,  again,  the  aroma  of  the 
sacrifice  moves  Yahweh  so  that  he  resolves  never  to  send 
another  deluge,  and  this  sacrifice  is  provided  for  by  the 
presence  of  an  extra  number  of  clean  (that  is,  sacrificial) 
animals  in  the  ark.  Even  a  non-Israelite  like  Balaam  may 
hope  to  secure  the  help  of  Yahweh  by  offering  a  sacrifice 
(Num.  23  :!/.). 

Sacrifice  of  children  was  not  foreign  to  the  early  religion 
of  Israel  as  we  have  had  occasion  to  notice.  The  first  pro- 
test against  this  custom,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  due  to  the  Elo- 
histic  author  of  the  Pentateuch.  The  right  of  the  divinity 
to  test  the  faith  and  obedience  of  his  servants  in  any  man- 
ner that  seems  good  to  him  is  assumed.  In  the  case  of  Abra- 
ham the  test  is  the  more  severe  in  that  Isaac  is  the  only 
child.  What  the  original  form  of  the  story  was  is  not  clear. 
Some  scholars  suppose  that  it  told  how  Abraham  was  obedi- 
ent even  to  the  extent  of  sacrificing  his  only  son.  But  the 
life  of  Isaac  is  so  essential  to  the  existence  of  Israel  that  we 
can  hardly  suppose  this  probable.  Nor  can  we  now  discover 
the  local  saga  which  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  story.  In  its 
present  form  it  teaches  that  at  least  in  cases  where  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  first-born  would  exterminate  the  family  Yah- 


KELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  113 

weh  will  accept  a  substitute.  The  lesson  would  not  have 
been  needed  unless  the  actual  sacrifice  were  in  vogue. 

An  important  step  was  taken  by  this  author  when  he  stated 
that  the  covenant  with  Yahweh  was  embodied  in  a  book, 
the  so-called  Covenant  code  (Ex.  20  :  22  to  23  : 32).  This 
codex  shows  on  the  surface  that  it  is  a  compilation  from  dif- 
ferent sources.  A  part  of  its  enactments,  if  we  may  call 
them  so,  are  legal  precedents,  as:  "If  a  man  smite  the  eye 
of  his  servant  or  of  his  maid  he  shall  let  him  go  free  for 
his  eye's  sake."  Some  are  in  the  form  of  direct  commands, 
as:  "Thou  shalt  not  let  a  sorceress  live."  The  idea  of  the 
compiler  is  that  all  civil  as  well  as  all  ritual  custom  is  under 
the  direct  care  of  Yahweh  and  that  the  covenant  with  him 
is  based  on  the  whole  social  order.  Moreover,  as  the  origin 
of  the  nation  was  traced  to  the  Mosaic  age,  and  as  the  Deca- 
logue already  embodied  the  will  of  Yahweh  in  specific  com- 
mands, it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  Moses  was  the  recip- 
ient of  a  code  which  he  published  in  written  form.  This 
idea  of  Moses  as  the  great  lawgiver  was  effectively  used  by 
the  author  of  Deuteronomy  and  finally  coloured  the  whole 
thought  of  the  people.  That  the  Covenant  code,  like  the 
earliest  decalogue,  was  the  product  of  the  agricultural  age 
needs  no  demonstration. 

In  this  code  no  line  is  drawn  between  civil  and  religious 
duties,  or  rather,  we  may  say,  that  all  duties  are  religious  in 
their  nature.  Israel  is  a  people  consecrated  to  Yahweh,  and 
must  avoid  all  that  is  offensive  to  him.  That  which  is  torn 
by  wild  beasts  must  not  be  eaten  because  it  had  been  infected 
by  the  taboo  of  a  demonic  being  (Ex.  22 : 30) .  In  approaching 
the  presence  of  the  divinity  men  must  put  away  all  strange 
gods,  must  wash  their  clothes,  and  must  keep  from  women 
(Ex.  19  : 14/.).  This  consecration  is  indicated  in  the  pas- 
sage which  speaks  of  Israel  as  a  kingdom  of  priests,  as  a  sa- 
cred nation,  and  as  Yahweh 's  own  possession  (Ex.  19  :  5/.). 
This  formulation  may  be  of  comparatively  late  date,  but 
the  idea  is  primitive.  And,  since  Yahweh  is  the  guardian 
of  the  social  order,  legal  questions  may  be  decided  by  him. 


114  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Thus  the  slave  who  decides  to  remain  with  his  master  is 
brought  before  God  in  order  that  his  status  may  be  sanc- 
tioned (Ex.  21 :  6).  An  oath  of  purgation  taken  before  Yah- 
weh  is  sufficient  to  establish  a  man's  innocence  (22  :  8,  10). 

The  code  marks  an  ethical  advance  by  its  treatment  of  the 
manslayer.  According  to  tribal  custom,  blood  calls  for  blood 
whether  there  be  evil  intent  or  not.  In  this  document  it 
is  provided  that  the  unintentional  slayer  may  flee  to  a  place 
of  refuge.  Whether  the  author  thinks  of  every  sanctuary 
as  such  a  place  of  refuge  is  doubtful.  The  more  prominent 
sacred  places  would  be  better  able  to  protect  the  suppliant, 
and  historically  we  read  only  of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  as 
affording  asylum  (I  Kings  1  : 50;  2  :  28).  What  is  re- 
markable in  the  Covenant  code  is  that  the  sacredness  of  the 
place  is  not  to  protect  the  intentional  murderer:  "Thou  shalt 
take  him  from  my  altar  to  put  him  to  death"  (Ex.  21  :  14). 

Neither  in  the  Covenant  code,  nor  anywhere  else  in  these 
early  narratives,  is  there  any  allusion  to  a  life  beyond  the 
grave.  The  happiness  of  the  patriarchs  consists  in  a  long 
life  and  a  peaceful  death.  Nevertheless,  the  soul  in  some 
sense  survives  the  death  of  the  body.  Jacob  says  that  he 
will  go  down  to  Sheol  to  his  son  Joseph  (Gen.  37  :  35).  It 
is  evident  that  Sheol  is  not  the  grave,  for  he  could  not 
hope  to  be  joined  with  Joseph  in  a  tomb.  Samuel  predicts 
that  Saul  and  his  sons  will  be  joined  with  him,  though  they 
are  not  buried  but  lie  on  the  field  of  battle  (I  Sam.  28  : 19). 
These  passages  indicate  clearly  enough  the  unimportant 
place  which  a  belief  in  a  future  life  took  in  the  thought  of 
the  times.  There  was  the  notion  that  the  immaterial  part 
of  man  goes  to  an  underground  region  where  it  leads  a 
shadowy  existence  and  whence  it  may  be  called  by  the 
necromancer.  The  ancestral  animism  which  paid  some  sort 
of  worship  to  the  shades  is  already  felt  to  be  inconsistent 
with  the  religion  of  Yahweh,  and  for  this  reason  the  whole 
subject  of  the  state  of  the  dead  is  kept  in  the  background. 

Summing  up  what  has  been  said,  we  may  affirm  that  in 
the  ninth  century  B.  C.  Yahweh  has  taken  full  possession 


RELIGION  IN  THE  EARLY  LITERATURE  115 

of  the  land  of  Canaan.  He  has  dispossessed  the  local  Baals 
and  taken  their  place  in  the  sanctuaries.  He  is  still  Israel's 
God  of  war,  but  he  is  also  the  God  of  the  agriculturist  and 
the  giver  of  the  fruits  of  the  ground.  In  dispossessing  the 
Baals,  therefore,  he  has  taken  on  some  of  their  features. 
The  land  of  Israel  is  his  land,  as  the  Philistines  imply  when 
they  propose  to  send  the  ark  back  to  its  own  place.  Yahweh 
himself  confirms  their  view  in  that  he  forces  the  cows  to  go 
up  the  road  to  Beth-shemesh  (I  Sam.  6  :  9,  12).  Joab's  at- 
tempt to  besiege  Abel-beth-Maacah  is  an  attempt  to  destroy 
the  heritage  of  Yahweh  (II  Sam.  20  : 19).  The  land  of 
Israel  is  consecrated  by  the  presence  of  Yahweh  so  that  even 
to  later  authors  it  is  different  from  all  other  countries. 
Both  Amos  and  Hosea  think  of  other  lands  as  unclean  (Amos 
7  : 17;  Hosea  9  :3).  Even  in  the  exilic  period  an  author 
was  able  to  say  of  Jonah,  that  he  thought  to  escape  the 
presence  of  Yahweh  by  fleeing  from  Canaan  (Jonah  1  : 3) . 
Foreigners  coming  into  the  territory  of  Yahweh  are  expected 
to  pay  him  worship.  Doeg,  the  Edomite,  was  undergoing 
purification  at  Nob  when  David  came  thither  (I  Sam.  21  :  8) ; 
Uriah,  though  a  Hittite,  declares  his  devotion  to  the  ark 
(II  Sam  11  : 11);  Ittai,  a  Philistine  just  enlisted  in  the  ser- 
vice of  David,  swears  by  Yahweh  (II  Sam.  15  :  21);  and  the 
colonists  sent  by  the  Assyrian  king  have  no  rest  until  they 
learn  how  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  God  of  the  land 
(II  Kings  17  :  24-28). 

If  the  more  advanced  thinkers  were  satisfied  with  this 
religion,  we  may  suppose  the  mass  of  the  people  to  be  equally 
so.  They  enjoyed  the  favour  of  Yahweh  when  the  crops  were 
bountiful  and  when  they  had  peace  from  their  enemies. 
They  believed  that  the  payment  of  the  dues  at  the  sanctu- 
aries and  the  eating  and  drinking  there  secured  a  continu- 
ance of  Yahweh's  favour.  If  the  political  situation  some- 
times caused  anxiety  and  there  seemed  to  be  danger  from 
hostile  neighbours,  the  Israelites  comforted  themselves  with 
the  thought  that  Yahweh  was  a  man  of  war,  and  as  he  had 
overcome  the  Canaanites  and  Philistines  so  he  would  take 


116  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  field  against  any  other  foe.  There  was  apparently  a 
tradition  that  a  great  day  of  Yahweh  was  not  far  away,  in 
which  he  would  signally  vindicate  himself  upon  invaders  of 
his  territory.  This  optimistic  hope  lulled  the  conscience  of 
the  people  into  a  false  security.  Some  aggressive  move- 
ment was  needed,  more  aggressive  than  was  contemplated 
by  the  writers  of  the  early  narratives,  if  the  religion  of 
Israel  was  to  make  any  real  advance.  Such  a  movement 
came  in  the  preaching  of  the  great  prophets. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   EARLIER   PROPHETS. 

ACCORDING  to  ancient  conceptions  the  gods  are  not  far 
from  any  one  of  us,  and  they  take  an  interest  in  the  affairs 
of  individual  men.  Hence  the  history  of  religion  shows  a 
variety  of  ways  in  which  men  have  tried  to  discover  the 
will  of  the  divinity.  Some  of  these  ways  were  not  in  vogue 
in  Israel.  Observation  of  the  flight  of  birds  or  of  the  con- 
duct of  animals,  for  example,  is  not  alluded  to  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Taking  the  auspices  from  the  entrails  of  sacri- 
ficial animals  is  also  conspicuous  by  its  absence  from  our 
documents.  Since  divination  by  the  liver  of  an  animal 
slain  at  the  temple  was  commonly  practised  in  Babylon  this 
absence  of  allusion  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  the  more 
remarkable.  The  Hebrew  ritual  law  enjoins  that  the  liver 
be  burnt  on  the  altar  (Lev.  3  : 15,  etc.),  probably  in  con- 
scious opposition  to  gentile  practice.  Moreover,  astrology, 
so  sedulously  cultivated  in  Babylon,  does  not  seem  to  have 
gained  a  foothold  in  Israel.  There  is  nowhere  in  the  Bible 
any  allusion  to  the  theory  of  a  close  correspondence  between 
what  takes  place  in  the  visible  heavens  and  what  goes  on  on 
the  earth.  Although  Yahweh  is  God  of  the  heavenly  armies, 
prognostication  by  observation  of  the  constellations  is  not 
attempted.  The  sole  exception  is  the  assertion  of  Deborah: 
"This  is  the  day  in  which  Yahweh  has  given  thine  enemy  into 
thy  hand;  has  not  Yahweh  gone  out  before  thee?"  (Judges 
4  : 14.)  Even  here  the  prophetess  does  no  more  than  ex- 
press the  belief  that  Yahweh  has  indicated  an  auspicious 
day;  in  what  method  we  are  not  told. 

The  reason  why  the  systematic  observation  of  the  heavens 

117 


118  THE  EELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

is  discouraged  by  the  Hebrews  is  evidently  the  fact  that 
such  observation  was  closely  connected  with  the  worship 
of  the  planets  and  constellations.  A  late  writer  has  inserted 
in  the  book  of  Jeremiah  a  warning  against  being  afraid  of 
the  signs  of  heaven  as  the  other  nations  are  afraid  of  them 
(Jer.  10  :!/.)•  The  Deuteronomists  frequently  exhort  Israel 
to  keep  from  this  superstition  which  was  rife  among  the 
nations,  even  tolerated  in  them  by  Yahweh's  own  appoint- 
ment (Deut.  4  : 19,  etc.).  Yahweh's  complete  control  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  is  indicated  by  the  assertion  that  he  has 
made  them  to  regulate  the  calendar  (Gen.  1  : 14)  and  by  his 
making  the  sun  reverse  its  course  (Isaiah  38  :  7/.).  But  no 
prediction  is  associated  with  any  of  these  texts.  Where  the 
Babylonian  star-gazers  are  alluded  to  it  is  in  tones  of  open 
contempt.  Addressing  Babylon  and  anticipating  its  immi- 
nent destruction,  the  prophet  says:  "Let  now  the  dividers  of 
the  heavens,  the  star-gazers,  the  monthly  prognosticates, 
stand  up  and  save  thee  from  the  things  that  shall  come  upon 
thee"  (Isaiah  47: 13).  These  passages  seem  to  show  that 
astrology,  so  far  as  it  was  practised  in  Israel  at  all,  was  a 
foreign  importation,  and,  taken  with  the  silence  of  the  doc- 
uments concerning  auspication  by  the  liver,  they  make  it 
clear  that  the  religion  of  Israel  developed  independently  of 
that  of  Babylon. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  various  other  methods 
of  inquiring  the  will  of  the  divinity — methods  which  we  call 
superstitious — were  unknown  in  Israel.  The  polemic  of  the 
Deuteronomist  is  sufficient  evidence:  "When  thou  comest 
into  the  land  which  Yahweh  thy  God  gives  thee,  thou  shalt 
not  learn  to  do  after  the  abominations  of  these  nations; 
there  shall  not  be  found  in  thee  any  that  makes  his  son  or 
his  daughter  to  pass  through  the  fire,  who  uses  divination 
or  practises  augury,  or  a  sorcerer,  or  a  charmer,  or  a  con- 
suiter  with  a  familiar  spirit,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  necromancer. 
For  whosoever  does  these  things  is  an  abomination  to 
Yahweh  thy  God"  (Deut.  18  :  9-12).  The  continuation  of 
the  passage  shows  that  these  ways  of  ascertaining  the  will 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  119 

of  the  divinity  are  contrasted  with  the  word  of  the  prophet 
as  the  false  contrasts  with  the  true.  The  author  indeed  re- 
gards these  not  only  as  false  but  also  as  foreign  supersti- 
tions, but  the  tenacity  with  which  they  were  held  in  Israel, 
returning  after  each  attempt  to  suppress  them,  shows  that 
they  were  a  part  of  the  popular  religion.  Though  violently 
repressed  by  the  reforming  party,  they  came  back  into  view 
as  soon  as  pressure  was  withdrawn,  as  in  the  time  of  Ma- 
nasseh  (II  Kings  21 :  6). 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  discover  the  nature  of  the  arts 
denounced  by  the  Deuteronomist.  Divination  by  the  sacred 
lot  is  certainly  one  of  them.  From  Ezekiel  we  learn  how  this 
was  done.  A  bundle  of  arrows  was  shaken  in  the  presence 
of  the  god,  and  one  was  drawn  from  the  bundle.  Nebuchad- 
rezzar is  undecided  whether  to  march  against  Rabbath- 
Ammon  or  against  Jerusalem.  At  the  parting  of  the  ways 
he  consults  the  teraphim,  looks  on  the  liver,  and  shakes  the 
arrows  to  and  fro.  The  arrow  which  comes  into  his  hand 
is  marked  "Jerusalem,"  and  this  decides  the  route  of  the 
army  and  the  fate  of  the  city  (Ezek.  21  :  26-28,  E.  V.,  vss. 
21-23).  This  passage  would  not  prove  that  diviners  were 
found  in  Israel,  but  in  other  passages  Ezekiel  intimates  that 
they  were  active  among  his  own  people,  and  even  brings 
them  into  close  connection  with  the  prophets  (13  :  9,  23). 
Isaiah  classes  them  with  the  judges,  prophets,  and  elders, 
as  pillars  of  the  state  (Isaiah  3:2).  Reaction  against  them 
is  shown  by  Jeremiah,  who,  however,  mentions  them  in  con- 
nection with  the  prophets  (Jer.  27  :  9;  29  :  8),  and  the 
classic  expression  of  this  opposition  is  found  in  the  verse: 

"For  rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  divination, 
And  like  the  teraphim  is  obstinacy."     (I  Sam.  15 :  23.) 

Another  kind  of  divination  is  designated  by  the  word 
which  we  have  rendered  augury.  Manasseh  is  accused  of  it 
(II  Kings  21  :  6),  and  Isaiah  reproaches  Judah  with  being 
full  of  it,  "like  the  Philistines"  (Isaiah  2:6).  Jeremiah 


120  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

warns  the  people  against  the  augurs  who  prophesy  a  lie  (Jer. 
27  :  9).  It  is  prohibited  by  the  Law  (Lev.  19  :  26).  With 
it  we  may  class  soothsaying.  The  only  distinct  clue  to  this 
form  is  given  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  where  the  value  of  the 
stolen  cup  is  said  to  consist  in  its  use  for  this  art  (Gen.  44  : 15). 
We  conclude  that  the  method  was  the  one  used  elsewhere 
with  a  magic  cup.  The  cup  was  filled  with  water  and  a 
little  oil  was  poured  upon  it.  The  shape  of  the  drops  in- 
dicated the  answer  that  was  sought.  The  ascription  of  this 
art  to  Joseph  shows  that  it  was  not  objected  to  in  Israel  in 
the  earlier  period,  though  later  it  was  regarded  as  sinful 
(II  Kings  17:17;  21*6).  Its  prohibition  by  the  Deu- 
teronomist  and  by  the  ritual  code  followed  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

Another  of  these  methods  of  getting  supernatural  knowl- 
edge or  power  is  sorcery.  As  early  as  the  covenant  code 
we  find  the  command:  "Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  sorceress  to 
live"  (Ex.  22  :  17).  This  was  probably  for  a  double  reason; 
she  was  in  communion  with  other  gods  than  Yahweh,  and 
she  made  use  of  her  alleged  powers  to  injure  her  neighbours 
in  person  or  property.  Ezekiel  denounces  Jewish  women  who 
sew  bands  for  all  wrists  and  make  caps  for  every  head,  to 
hunt  lives.  The  purpose  is  evidently  to  inflict  disease  or 
death  upon  obnoxious  persons,  contrary  to  the  will  of  Yahweh. 
These  women  are  called  prophetesses,  from  which  we  are 
authorised  to  conclude  that  they  claimed  supernatural 
knowledge,  and  as  they  are  said  to  profane  the  name  of 
Yahweh,  we  may  suppose  they  claimed  to  receive  revelations 
from  him  (Ezek.  13  :  17-23).  In  the  time  of  Jeremiah  sor- 
cerers uttered  false  predictions  (Jer.  27  :  9),  and  Malachi  de- 
nounces them  along  with  other  evil-doers  (Mai.  3:5). 
Elsewhere  they  are  associated  with  Babylon  (Isaiah  47  :  9 
and  12),  and  with  Jezebel,  queen  of  Israel  (II  Kings  9  :  22). 
The  similarity  of  ideas  in  Israel  and  outside  it  is  indicated 
by  the  conflict  of  the  Egyptian  sorcerers  with  Moses,  in 
which  they  duplicate  some  of  his  miracles,  although  they 
finally  acknowledge  his  superiority  (Ex.  7  :  11). 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  121 

Enchantment,  probably  the  casting  of  spells  over  a  person, 
was  also  practised  in  Israel,  but  has  no  bearing  upon  the 
question  of  revelation,  with  which  we  are  now  concerned. 
Consultation  of  spirits,  however,  is  illustrated  by  a  cele- 
brated case.  The  adept  in  this  art  is  called  possessor  of  an 
ob,  a  word  of  obscure  meaning.  The  narrative  of  the  witch 
of  Endor  makes  sufficiently  plain  what  the  people  believed: 
the  necromancer  had  the  power  of  invoking  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  and  received  from  them  revelations  of  the  future 
(I  Sam.  28).  With  this  art  we  find  mention  of  wizardry 
(II  Kings  21  :  6;  23  :  24;  Isaiah  8  :  19;  19  :  3).  The  wiz- 
ards and  necromancers  are  said  to  defile  those  who  consult 
them,  sufficient  evidence  that  they  came  into  connection 
with  other  divinities  than  Yahweh  (Lev.  19  :  31).  From 
Isaiah  we  learn  that  these  practitioners  chirped  and  mut- 
tered in  voices  that  were  supposed  to  be  those  of  the  spirits 
they  consulted.  Down  to  the  present  day  Palestinian  magi- 
cians in  their  rites  "make  a  sucking  sound  as  one  might 
chirrup  to  a  horse."  1 

To  the  Deuteronomist's  list  of  magic  arts  we  should  add 
consultation  of  the  teraphim.  The  passage  from  Ezekiel 
quoted  above  shows  that  these  divinities  were  appealed  to 
for  decisions,  and  while  the  action  of  a  heathen  king  would 
not  prove  anything  concerning  the  custom  in  Israel,  the 
association  of  the  teraphim  with  divination  in  a  passage 
already  cited  (I  Sam.  15  :  23)  is  significant.  Moreover,  we 
find  the  teraphim  mentioned  in  company  with  the  ephod, 
which  was  a  means  of  discovering  the  will  of  Yahweh  (Judges 
17  :  5;  Hosea  3:4;  Judges  18  :  14).  In  one  of  our  latest 
documents  it  is  declared :  "  The  teraphim  have  spoken  vanity, 
and  the  diviners  have  seen  a  lie"  (Zech.  10  :  2);  and  the 
account  of  Josiah's  reforms  groups  the  teraphim  with  necro- 
mancers and  soothsayers  (II  Kings  23  :  24).  That  the  tera- 
phim were  images  of  some  kind  seems  clear  from  the  story 
of  David's  flight  and  Michal's  stratagem  (I  Sam.  19  :  13/.). 

The  desire  to  know  the  will  of  the  divinity  is  sufficiently 
1  Bliss,  Religions  of  Palestine,  p.  273. 


122  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

evidenced  by  this  list  of  proscribed  arts.  It  was  only  in  the 
later  period  that  they  were  proscribed  in  Israel,  and  in  con- 
trast with  them  three  methods  of  ascertaining  the  divine 
decision  were  regarded  as  legitimate.  These  were  dreams, 
Urim,  and  appeal  to  a  prophet.  It  was  only  when  these 
failed  him  that  Saul  appealed  to  the  necromancer.1  Of 
these  three  the  Urim  or,  more  fully,  Urim  and  Thummim 
early  fell  out  of  use.  It  seems  to  have  been  one  form  of  the 
sacred  lot.  A  passage  preserved  to  us  by  the  Greek  transla- 
tion of  I  Samuel  (14  :  41)  indicates  that  after  appropriate 
ceremonies  the  divinity  was  asked  to  give  a  negative  or  posi- 
tive answer  to  the  question  put  by  the  inquirer  or  to  dis- 
tinguish between  two  alternatives.  Since  there  was  a  third 
possibility,  that  is,  that  the  answer  might  be  refused,  the  lot 
must  have  been  arranged  for  three  possible  answers.  The 
simplest  hypothesis  is  that  the  Urim  and  Thummim  were 
two  disks,  white  on  one  side  and  black  on  the  other.  If  both 
fell  with  the  white  side  uppermost  the  answer  would  be 
affirmative;  if  with  the  black  side  uppermost,  negative; 
while  if  one  showed  the  white  and  the  other  the  black  the 
answer  was  withheld.  The  management  of  the  oracle  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  priests,  and  even  the  latest  code  provides 
for  depositing  the  sacred  implements  in  the  ephod  of  the 
high  priest.  In  an  early  poem  they  are  associated  with  the 
Levitical  guild  (Deut.  33  :  8),  as  already  noted.  David  had 
the  sacred  lot  at  his  command  because  Abiathar  brought  the 
ephod  with  him  when  he  escaped  from  the  massacre  at  Nob. 
Dreams  are  regarded  as  means  of  revelation  in  all  early 
religions,  and  they  are  frequently  presented  in  this  light  in 
the  Old  Testament.  From  Abraham  down  to  Nebuchad- 
rezzar men  prominent  in  the  narrative  are  recipients  of 
dreams.  The  practice  of  sleeping  in  a  sanctuary  in  order  to 
receive  a  revelation  is  perhaps  indicated  (as  we  have  already 
noted)  in  the  story  of  Jacob  at  Bethel  and  also  in  that  of 
Solomon  at  Gibeon.  When  we  are  told  that  Saul  sought  an 

1 1  Sam.  28  :  6.     The  historicity  of  the  account  is  open  to  objection, 
but  its  value  as  a  statement  of  popular  belief  is  indubitable. 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  123 

answer  from  Yahweh  but  received  none  by  dreams  we 
naturally  think  that  he  sought  them  by  incubation,  that  is, 
sleeping  in  the  sanctuary.  The  dreamers  of  dreams  are  asso- 
ciated with  the  prophets  in  several  passages,  and,  in  fact,  the 
prophets  seem  often  to  have  received  their  revelations  in 
dreams.  It  is  only  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah  that  the  dream 
begins  to  lose  its  reputation :  "  The  prophet  that  has  a  dream 
let  him  tell  his  dream,  but  he  that  has  my  word  let  him  speak 
my  word  faithfully;  what  is  the  straw  to  the  wheat?  says 
Yahweh"  (Jer.  23  : 25,  28).  The  superiority  of  Moses  to  the 
other  prophets  is  indicated  by  the  declaration  that  Yahweh 
speaks  to  the  others  in  dreams  and  visions,  but  with  Moses 
face  to  face  (Num.  12  :  6-8). 

While  Yahweh  may  reveal  himself  to  any  man  by  a  dream 
(even  to  a  non-Israelite),  certain  men  are  thought  to  be  so 
nearly  in  touch  with  the  divinity  that  they  receive  frequent 
revelations  both  by  dreams  and  by  waking  visions.  Such 
men  are  seers  or  prophets.  In  the  earlier  time  the  two  classes 
seem  to  have  been  quite  distinct.  Two  words  designate  the 
seer,  which  we  might  translate  seer  and  gazer.  The  account 
of  Saul's  meeting  with  Samuel  tells  us  of  the  seer  (I  Sam.  9). 
The  young  man  is  in  perplexity  concerning  the  lost  asses  of 
his  father  and  is  advised  by  his  servant  that  in  the  neigh- 
bouring village  there  is  a  man  of  God,  and  all  that  he  says 
comes  to  pass.  The  seer  by  his  supernatural  knowledge  is 
able  to  tell  about  lost  articles.  He  is  a  local  practitioner 
who  assists  people  in  such  matters.  The  pains  taken  by 
Saul's  servant  to  give  assurance  that  the  man  is  honourable 
indicates  that  some  of  the  professors  of  the  art  were  not 
above  suspicion.  The  narrative  shows  that  Samuel  pre- 
dicted the  events  of  the  coming  day,  not  to  satisfy  Saul's 
curiosity,  but  to  give  him  assurance  of  the  genuineness  of 
his  message  concerning  the  kingship. 

The  distinction  between  seer,  gazer,  and  prophet  was  lost 
sight  of  in  the  period  of  the  monarchy.  Isaiah  mentions 
seers  and  gazers  in  the  same  breath  (Isaiah  30  :  10);  Gad, 
an  official  at  David's  court,  is  called  a  gazer  and  also  a 


124  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

prophet  (II  Sam.  24  : 11).  Prophets  and  gazers  occur  to- 
gether in  II  Kings  (17  :  13)  and  in  Isaiah  (Isaiah  29  :  10). 
Amos  is  called  a  gazer,  perhaps  contemptuously,  by  Ama- 
ziah,  who  warns  him  not  to  play  the  prophet  at  the  royal 
sanctuary  (Amos  7  : 12).  Micah,  however,  classes  the 
gazers  with  diviners  and  regards  them  as  inferior  to  the 
prophets  (Micah  3:7).  These  references  show  that  the  peo- 
ple at  large  did  not  distinguish  between  prophets,  seers, 
and  gazers.  All  three  classes  doubtless  arrogated  the  title 
"man  of  God"  and  claimed  supernatural  illumination.  In 
fact,  however,  the  prophets  are  of  different  origin  from  the 
others.  This  is  made  clear  by  the  passage  which  describes 
the  band  of  prophets  at  Geba,  the  home  of  Saul  (I  Sam. 
10  :  10).  Here  we  find  them  in  a  company,  marching  in 
procession  headed  by  lyre,  drum,  fife,  and  harp.  They  are 
engaging  in  some  enthusiastic  exercise,  probably  the  dance, 
and  so  powerful  is  the  contagion  of  this  enthusiasm  that 
Saul,  to  the  surprise  of  his  neighbours,  is  overcome  by  the 
same  impulse  and  joins  with  them.  In  the  parallel  account 
we  read  that  Saul  threw  off  his  clothes  and  lay  naked  all 
day  and  all  night  (I  Sam.  19  :  18-24).  The  phenomena  are 
strikingly  like  those  presented  by  the  devotees  of  the  Great 
Mother  in  Asia  Minor  and  by  the  dervishes  of  the  present 
day.  The  motive  was  and  is  to  enjoy  the  ecstasy  of  com- 
munion with  the  divinity.  The  enthusiastic  exercises  induce 
a  state  of  exaltation  in  which  the  spirit  seems  rapt  out  of 
itself,  or,  in  another  conception  of  it,  in  which  the  divinity 
seems  to  come  down  and  take  possession  of  the  worshipper. 
The  Hebrews  applied  the  word  prophesy  to  the  extravagant 
action  of  an  insane  man,  as  of  Saul  under  the  influence  of  a 
supposed  spirit  of  evil  (I  Sam.  18  :  10).  The  young  prophet 
sent  by  Elisha  to  anoint  Jehu  is  called  by  the  officers  a  crazy 
fellow,  and  Jehu  at  first  affects  to  make  light  of  his  "babble" 
(II  Kings  9  : 11).  At  a  later  date  the  temple  police  are 
advised  to  arrest  irresponsible  men  like  Jeremiah  who  rave 
and  play  the  prophet  (Jer.  29  :  26). 
The  primary  purpose  of  the  prophets,  then,  was  not  to  se- 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  125 

cure  revelations  for  the  benefit  of  others  but  to  get  into 
close  relation  with  the  divinity  for  their  own  enjoyment. 
Yet  it  could  hardly  be  that  they  would  not  obtain  great 
influence  among  the  people  because  of  their  being  men  of 
God.  And  since  they  were  zealous  for  Yahweh  they  often 
exerted  a  considerable  influence  on  the  popular  religion 
and  also  on  political  movements.  It  is  not  accidental  that 
they  come  into  view  at  two  crises  of  Israel's  history:  in  the 
time  of  Saul,  when  the  Philistine  encroachment  was  most 
galling,  and  in  the  time  of  Ahab,  when  the  Phoenician  Baal 
invaded  the  territory  of  Yahweh.  Individual  prophets  ap- 
pear in  our  narrative  as  political  agitators.  Nathan  took 
an  active  part  in  seating  Solomon  on  the  throne  (I  Kings 
1  :  ll/.).  Ahijah  the  Shilonite  encouraged  Jeroboam  to 
revolt  against  Solomon  (I  Kings  11  : 29-39).  Jehu  ben 
Hanani  threatened  Baasha  with  the  extermination  of  his 
house  (I  Kings  16  :  1-4).  Elisha  actively  fomented  the  con- 
spiracy of  Jehu,  and  according  to  tradition  even  suggested 
assassination  as  the  way  to  a  change  of  dynasty  in  Damascus 
(II  Kings  8  :  7-13).  In  the  view  of  later  times  Samuel  was 
the  originator  of  the  kingship  and  unmade  kings  as  easily 
as  he  made  them.  Since  Yahweh  is  the  god  of  the  social 
order,  it  is  inevitable  that  his  servants  should  concern  them- 
selves with  affairs  of  state. 

The  prophet,  being  a  man  of  God,  was  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people  a  worker  of  miracles.  Moses  is  a  conspicuous  ex- 
ample. But  others  are  almost  as  remarkable.  Thus  Sam- 
uel appeals  to  Yahweh  and  receives  an  answer  in  the  thunder 
(I  Sam.  12  :  18).  The  lives  of  Elijah  and  Elisha  seem  to 
have  been  written  to  show  the  superhuman  power  of  the  two 
men.  The  widow's  cruse  of  oil  (I  Kings  17  :  13-16),  the 
parting  of  the  waters  of  the  Jordan  (II  Kings  2:8),  the 
healing  of  the  waters  of  Jericho  (2  : 19/.)  are  so  many  evi- 
dences of  the  popular  belief,  as  are  the  shocking  anecdotes 
of  the  two  bears  (2  :  23-25)  and  of  the  destruction  of  two 
companies  of  soldiers  by  fire  from  heaven  (1  :  10-12).  The 
power  of  Elijah  to  withhold  the  rain  is  not  doubted,  and  al- 


126  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

though  the  contest  at  Carmel  is  intended  to  decide  whether 
Baal  or  Yahweh  is  the  true  God  for  Israel,  there  is  also  the 
question  whether  Elijah  or  the  Baal  prophets  can  bring 
the  rain.  The  extreme  expression  of  the  popular  belief  is 
the  legend  that  Elijah  was  carried  off  by  a  fiery  chariot  to 
heaven.  >To  appreciate  this  we  must  remind  ourselves  that 
in  this  period  there  was  no  thought  that  the  saints  live  in 
heaven.  The  only  parallel  to  the  case  of  Elijah  is  that  of 
Enoch — a  survival  from  the  mythological  stage  of  belief. 

The  belief  of  the  people  in  the  divine  protection  accorded 
the  man  of  God  accounts  for  the  deference  with  which  the 
prophets  were  treated  by  those  in  authority  and  for  the  bold- 
ness of  the  prophets  themselves  in  the  presence  of  kings. 
Ehud,  by  pretending  to  have  a  message  from  God,  obtained  a 
private  audience  from  Eglon  (Judges  3  :  20).  The  young 
prophet  who  wished  to  disguise  himself  from  Ahab  com- 
manded a  man  to  strike  him,  and  the  refusal  was  punished 
by  a  lion  (I  Kings  20  :  36).  Gehazi  was  punished  by  leprosy 
for  misusing  Elisha's  name  (II  Kings  5  :  27).  The  sceptic 
who  doubted  the  word  of  this  prophet  died  the  next  day 
(7  :  20).  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  elders  of  Beth- 
lehem trembled  at  the  coming  of  Samuel  (I  Sam.  16  :  4).  In 
the  popular  view,  and  no  doubt  in  the  view  of  the  prophets 
themselves,  disobedience  to  a  man  of  God  is  disobedience  to 
God  himself,  and  what  this  means  is  clear :  "  Has  Yahweh  as 
great  delight  in  burnt-offering  and  sacrifice  as  in  obeying 
the  voice  of  Yahweh?  Behold  to  obey  is  better  than  sacri- 
fice, and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams"  (I  Sam.  15  :  22). 
The  conviction  that  Yahweh  speaks  through  the  prophet 
accounts  for  the  boldness  with  which  Nathan  denounced 
David  for  his  adultery,  and  Elijah  pronounced  judgment  on 
the  tyranny  of  Ahab. 

Tradition  draws  no  clear  line  of  distinction  between  priest, 
seer,  and  prophet.  The  annotator  of  the  narrative  concern- 
ing Saul  and  Samuel  supposes  seer  to  be  simply  the  archaic 
term  for  prophet.  The  life  of  Moses  shows  him  acting  both 
as  priest  and  prophet,  and  Samuel  is  presented  in  the  three- 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  127 

fold  aspect  as  priest,  seer,  and  prophet.  In  the  course  of 
time  the  seer  became  less  prominent  and  there  came  a  differ- 
entiation between  priest  and  prophet.  Where  a  priest  be- 
came a  prophet,  as  in  the  case  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  the 
priestly  function  dropped  into  a  subordinate  place.  The 
result  was  to  make  the  priest  simply  a  minister  of  the  sanctu- 
ary, charged  with  the  proper  performance  of  the  ritual,  whose 
tora  (instruction)  was  strictly  limited  to  matters  of  ritual 
cleanness,  while  the  prophet  became  the  preacher,  the  critic 
of  the  existing  order,  and  therefore  often  in  sharp  opposi- 
tion to  the  priesthood.  Evidence  that  the  prophets  had 
actually  appropriated  the  work  of  the  seer  is  given  by  the 
word  vision,  used  to  designate  the  written  words  of  the 
prophet.  Thus  the  title  of  Isaiah's  book  is  "The  Vision  of 
Isaiah." 

This  word  vision,  descriptive  of  the  experience  of  the  man 
of  God,  is  from  the  same  root  with  the  word  which  I  have 
translated  gazer.  It  is  not  applied  ordinarily  to  dreams. 
The  idea  which  it  expresses  is  that  the  world  is  full  of  things 
which  are  invisible  to  the  ordinary  eye  but  which  may  be 
seen  by  the  man  who  has  some  special  power.  Thus  there 
was  an  angel  standing  in  the  road  by  which  Balaam 
must  go,  but  he  was  not  seen  by  the  prophet.  The  riding 
animal  had  the  keener  sight.  Only  when  Yahweh  opened 
Balaam's  eyes  did  he  see  what  confronted  him.  Yahweh, 
therefore,  is  said  to  "uncover  the  eye"  of  the  prophet. 
Balaam  describes  himself  as  one  who  sees  the  vision  of  the 
Almighty,  lying  prostrate  but  having  the  eye  uncovered 
(Num.  24  :  4).  When  Elisha's  servant  is  terrified  by  the 
approach  of  the  Syrian  army  the  prophet  prays  that  his 
eyes  may  be  opened,  whereupon  the  servant  sees  the  moun- 
tain full  of  chariots  and  horses  of  fire  (II  Kings  6  :  15-17). 
It  is  this  supernatural  quickening  of  the  eye  which  makes 
the  prophet,  the  seer,  or  the  gazer.  Neither  the  prophet 
himself  nor  the  men  to  whom  he  described  his  visions  had  any 
doubt  of  the  reality  of  the  supersensible  objects  presented  to 
his  spiritual  eye. 


128  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Similarly  the  ear  may  be  quickened  to  hear  what  is  not 
audible  to  the  ordinary  sense.  What  is  thus  heard  is  usu- 
ally the  words  of  a  superhuman  being,  Yahweh  or  his  angel. 
Balaam  claims  that  he  hears  the  words  of  God  and  knows 
the  knowledge  of  the  Most  High  (Num.  24  : 16).  When 
Yahweh  makes  a  revelation  to  Samuel  he  uncovers  his  ear 
(I  Sam.  9  : 15);  and  a  number  of  parallels  might  be  cited. 
But  audition  is  less  common  than  vision.  As  time  went 
on  the  word  vision  designated  the  word  of  the  prophet, 
as  we  have  seen.  In  the  apocalyptic  literature  the  vision 
is  a  purely  literary  device.  Since  the  prophet  is  the  organ 
by  which  Yahweh  makes  his  will  known  to  men,  it  is  nat- 
ural for  him  to  think  of  his  words  as  something  placed  in 
his  mouth  by  the  divinity  (Jer.  1:9).  Ezekiel  is  even  more 
materialistic;  he  sees  Yahweh  hand  him  a  book  which  he 
takes  and  eats  (Ezek.  2 :  8  to  3 :  3).  The  psychological  fact 
which  gives  rise  to  these  descriptions  seems  to  be  the  strong 
inner  impulse  to  deliver  a  certain  message  which  comes  to 
the  prophet  without  conscious  and  deliberate  reasoning  of 
his  own.  The  conviction  of  the  truth  objectifies  itself  to 
him  as  a  command  of  God  ordering  him  to  speak.  Jere- 
miah tells  us  how  contrary  his  message  was  to  his  natural 
feelings  and  how,  in  consequence,  he  resolved  that  he  would 
not  speak  any  more.  But  the  inner  torment  became  so 
great  that  he  was  compelled  to  deliver  the  message  (Jer. 
20 :  9;  cf.  6 : 11). 

Although  the  more  marked  phenomena  of  Hebrew  proph- 
etism  are  such  as  are  elsewhere  attributed  to  possession  by 
a  divinity,  the  Old  Testament  nowhere  says  that  Yahweh 
enters  into  a  man.  What  is  done  in  cases  of  extraordinary 
manifestations  is  done  by  the  spirit  of  Yahweh.  This  spirit 
clothes  itself  with  the  hero  (Judges  6  :  34)  or  comes  upon 
him  (Judges  11  : 29;  Num.  24  :  2).  The  writers  seem  to 
have  formulated  no  distinct  theory  concerning  this  spirit. 
In  some  cases  it  seems  to  be  an  influence  sent  by  Yahweh, 
like  the  spirit  of  jealousy  or  of  suspicion  mentioned  in  some 
passages  (Num.  5  : 14;  II  Kings  19  :  7).  It  is  materialisti- 


THE  EARLIER  PROPHETS  129 

cally  conceived  and  it  can  be  transferred  from  one  man  to 
another.  Elisha  asks  for  a  double  portion  of  it  (the  portion 
of  the  first-born  son)  as  though  it  were  to  be  divided  among 
Elijah's  heirs  (II  Kings  2:9).  Yahweh  takes  a  part  of 
the  spirit  which  is  on  Moses  and  puts  it  upon  the  elders 
of  Israel  (Num.  11  :  17).  But  in  some  passages  the  spirit 
seems  to  be  a  distinct  personality.  Micaiah  sees  in  vision 
how  the  spirit  responds  to  Yahweh's  inquiry  for  a  method 
of  beguiling  Ahab  to  his  death,  by  offering  to  be  a  lying 
spirit  in  the  mouth  of  his  prophets  (I  Kings  22  :  2 1/.). 

The  importance  of  the  spirit  as  the  organ  of  revelation  is 
attested  by  a  number  of  passages.  The  poet  who  speaks 
for  David  at  the  close  of  the  great  king's  life  claims  that  it 
was  the  spirit  of  Yahweh  that  spoke  through  him  and  that 
Yabweh's  word  was  on  his  tongue  (II  Sam.  23  :  2).  Joel 
supposes  that  in  the  Messianic  time  the  spirit  will  be  im- 
parted to  all  the  members  of  the  theocratic  community, 
giving  dreams  and  visions — that  is,  revelations — to  young 
and  old  (Joel  3:1).  In  Deutero-Isaiah  we  read :  "  This  is  my 
covenant  with  them,  says  Yahweh:  My  spirit  which  is 
upon  thee,  and  my  words  which  I  have  put  into  thy  mouth, 
shall  not  depart  from  thy  mouth  nor  from  the  mouth  of  thy 
children  nor  from  the  mouth  of  thy  children's  children 
forever"  (Isaiah  59  :  21).  The  Messianic  King  himself  will 
be  endued  with  the  spirit,  to  qualify  him  for  his  office,  and 
the  spirit  is  described  as  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  insight, 
the  spirit  of  knowledge  and  religion  (Isaiah  11  :  2). 

In  the  prophets  whose  writings  have  come  down  to  us 
the  work  of  the  spirit  is  to  impel  men  to  speak  to  their  con- 
temporaries concerning  the  divine  will.  Through  the  prophet 
Yahweh  rebukes  the  people  for  their  sin  and  threatens  them 
with  punishment.  The  prophet's  conviction  that  he  was 
called  to  speak  in  the  name  of  Israel's  God  might  come  in 
the  form  of  a  vision,  as  we  have  seen,  or  it  might  be  a  strong 
inward  sense  of  inevitableness.  In  any  case  the  subject  of 
the  experience  was  sure  that  what  he  experienced  was  not 
the  result  of  his  own  judgment  or  reasoning  powers.  Yet 


130  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

it  was  easy  to  mistake  the  source  of  this  conviction,  and 
among  those  whom  we  call  false  prophets  there  were  prob- 
ably some  who  were  as  sincere  as  were  their  opponents  whose 
words  found  their  way  into  the  canon  of  Scripture.  That 
some  who  claimed  the  prophetic  inspiration  made  use  of  their 
alleged  gifts  for  purposes  of  private  gain  is  evident.  The 
sincerely  patriotic,  unselfish,  and  religious  men  were  in  the 
minority,  and  were  opposed,  even  persecuted,  both  by  mem- 
bers of  the  guild  and  by  the  secular  authorities.  This  op- 
position brought  out  the  essential  nobility  of  their  char- 
acters. Later  generations  did  them  justice  and  took  pains 
to  preserve  some  record  of  their  utterances.  For  this  reason 
their  works  have  come  down  to  us  in  one  division  of  our 
Hebrew  Bible. 


CHAPTER  VII 
AMOS  AND  HOSEA 

"!N  the  fifteenth  year  of  Amaziah  king  of  Judah  began 
Jeroboam  son  of  Joash  king  of  Israel  to  reign  in  Samaria 
and  he  reigned  forty-one  years.  He  restored  the  boundary 
of  Israel  from  the  Entrance  of  Hamath  to  the  sea  of  the 
Arabah,  according  to  the  word  of  Yahweh,  God  of  Israel, 
which  he  spoke  by  his  servant  Jonah  son  of  Amittai,  who 
was  of  Gath-hepher.  For  Yahweh  saw  the  affliction  of  Israel 
that  it  was  very  bitter,  for  there  was  none  fettered  nor  free, 
neither  was  there  any  helper  for  Israel.  And  Yahweh  re- 
solved that  he  would  not  blot  out  the  name  of  Israel  from 
under  heaven,  and  he  saved  them  by  the  hand  of  Jeroboam 
son  of  Joash"  (II  Kings  14  :  23-27). 

This  statement  of  the  Hebrew  author  sufficiently  sets 
forth  the  state  of  things  when  the  prophetic  movement 
took  a  new  direction.  There  had  been  great  distress  in  the 
northern  kingdom  under  the  persistent  aggression  of  Da- 
mascus, the  hereditary  enemy.  In  the  time  of  Jeroboam  II 
a  turn  had  come  for  the  better.  Damascus  was  occupied 
with  a  more  formidable  foe  on  its  northern  frontier,  and 
this  gave  Israel  an  opportunity  to  recover  its  lost  territory. 
Jeroboam  did  not  hesitate  to  seize  his  advantage,  and  he 
was  able  to  extend  his  frontier  to  the  traditional  boundary 
claimed  by  Israel.  All  the  signs  go  to  show  that  the  people 
under  Jeroboam's  sway  interpreted  the  success  of  their  arms, 
as  is,  in  fact,  declared  in  the  passage  just  quoted,  as  due 
to  the  direct  intervention  of  Yahweh.  Congratulating 
themselves  that  they  were  protected  by  their  God,  they 
observed  the  rites  of  the  ancestral  religion  with  zeal  and 

131 


132  THE  KELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

confidence.  But  their  rejoicing  was  premature.  Even  be- 
fore the  death  of  Jeroboam  a  change  set  in,  and  within  a 
few  years  of  this  apparent  prosperity  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
ceased  to  be.  The  sister  kingdom  prolonged  its  existence 
more  than  a  century  longer,  but  at  length  it,  too,  succumbed. 

The  question  which  confronts  us  is:  Why  did  not  the 
fate  of  the  nation  determine  the  fate  of  the  nation's  God? 
To  the  mass  of  the  people  Yahweh  was  a  national  God, 
more  powerful,  perhaps,  than  Chemosh  of  Moab,  but  in  other 
respects  like  him.  When  Moab  perished  Chemosh  ceased 
to  be  more  than  a  name.  \  But  as  Israel  shrank  in  impor- 
tance, Yahweh  grew,  and  when  his  worshippers  could  no 
longer  call  themselves  a  nation  he  became  to  his  worshippers, 
and  later  to  all  the  civilised  world,  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth;  and  his  religion  made  its  way  to  people  to  whom 
Israel  had  been  unknown  even  by  name.  As  historical  stu- 
dents, we  must  try  to  apprehend  the  process  by  which  the 
God  of  Israel  thus  freed  himself  from  the  national  bonds  by 
which  he  had  been  held,  and  became  the  God  above  all 
Gods,  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  universe.  \  This  process 
was  due  in  large  measure  to  the  men  whose  writings  have 
come  down  to  us  in  the  books  of  the  prophets.  These  writ- 
ings are,  to  be  sure,  fragments  only,  and  what  makes  them 
more  difficult  to  understand  is  that  they  have  undergone 
extensive  revision  by  editors  who  were  not  always  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  original  authors.  The  progress  of  criticism, 
however,  has  enabled  us  to  trace  an  outline  of  the  develop- 
ment with  some  confidence. 

The  first  thing  we  discover  is  that  the  prophets  build 
upon  foundations  already  laid.  This  is  inevitable.  How- 
ever convinced  the  reformer  may  be  that  a  radical  change 
is  needed,  no  revolution  ever  makes  a  clean  sweep  of  exist- 
ing institutions.  Moreover,  man's  inextinguishable  ideal- 
ism convinces  him  that  the  former  days  were  better  than 
these.  The  most  powerful  argument  which  the  preacher 
can  bring  in  favour  of  his  message  is  that  what  is  needed  is 
a  return  to  the  better  manners  of  the  fathers.  This  explains 


AMOS  AND  HOSE  A  133 

the  attitude  of  the  prophets  toward  tradition.  They  did 
adopt  certain  ideas  which  were  current  in  their  time,  but 
they  made  use  of  them  in  a  manner  that  was  new  and  star- 
tling to  their  contemporaries.  The  people,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  familiar  with  the  idea  that  Yahweh  was  the  God  of 
Israel  and  that  Israel  was  his  people.  The  prophets  assume 
this.  They  assume  also  the  corollary — that  Yahweh  reveals 
his  will  to  his  people.  Religion  is  knowledge  and  fear  of 
Yahweh,  and  the  knowledge  must  come  from  him  in  the 
first  place,  being  made  plain  to  chosen  instruments  who 
proclaim  it  to  their  fellows. 

It  was  probably  at  the  great  autumn  festival,  when  the 
crowds  had  gathered  with  sacrifices  at  the  sanctuary  at 
Bethel  to  eat  and  drink  and  rejoice  before  Yahweh,  that 
"suddenly  there  appeared  a  man  who  checked  the  joyous 
celebration  by  the  earnestness  of  his  mien.  It  was  a  plain 
shepherd  from  the  borders  of  the  wilderness.  Into  the  gay 
music  of  the  revellers  with  their  drums  and  harps  he  in- 
jected a  discordant  note,  for  he  chanted  the  dirge  which 
the  mourners  were  accustomed  to  sing  as  they  followed  the 
corpse  to  the  tomb.  Through  all  the  shouting  of  the  crowd 
he  heard  the  death-rattle:  'The  virgin  Israel  has  fallen,  no 
more  to  rise/  was  the  burden  of  his  song."  l  The  priest  in 
charge  of  the  temple  had  no  good  opinion  of  the  strolling 
prophets  who  thus  disturbed  the  festivities,  and  he  gave  this 
one  a  warning:  "Go,  Seer,  flee  into  the  land  of  Judah  and 
there  earn  thy  bread,  and  there  play  the  prophet.  At 
Bethel  you  cannot  prophesy  any  more,  for  it  is  a  court  sanc- 
tuary." As  in  duty  bound  the  officer  reported  the  incident 
to  his  monarch,  and  Amos  was  compelled  to  keep  silence. 
His  reply  to  the  priest,  however,  has  become  classic:  "I 
am  no  prophet  nor  prophet's  apprentice,  but  a  plain  herds- 
man and  a  cutter  of  sycamore  fruit.  And  Yahweh  took  me 
from  following  the  flock  and  said  to  me:  'Go,  prophesy  to 
my  people  Israel'"  (Amos  7  :  14/.).  It  is  plain  that  Amos 
wished  to  dissociate  himself  from  the  professional  prophets 
1  Wellhausen,  Israelitische  und  Judische  Geschichte,  p.  105. 


134  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

of  the  guilds.  Yet  even  in  his  denial  he  finds  no  word  to 
designate  his  activity  except  "prophesy."  He  means  that 
he  was  overborne  by  the  will  of  Yahweh  just  as  those  pro- 
phets claimed  to  be.  The  irresistible  nature  of  this  impulse 
is  indicated  by  his  declaration:  "When  the  lion  roars  who 
will  not  fear?  When  Yahweh  speaks  who  can  help  proph- 
esying?" (3:8.) 

With  reference  to  Yahweh's  election  of  Israel  Amos  gives 
no  uncertain  sound:  Yahweh  had  brought  the  people  out  of 
Egypt,  had  led  them  in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  and  had 
destroyed  the  Amorites  before  them  (2  :  9/.).  "You  only  of 
all  the  nations  have  I  known,"  says  Yahweh  (3  :  2) ;  though 
later  a  broader  view  is  intimated  (9:7).  Canaan  is  Yah- 
weh's land,  and  other  lands  are  unclean  (7  :  17;  cf.  Hosea 
9  :  3-5).  As  God  of  the  land  he  gives  or  withholds  the 
rain  and  sends  blasting  and  mildew  (4  :  6-9).  It  is  evidence 
of  his  grace  that  he  sends  prophets  and  nazirites  (2  : 11). 
In  all  this  Amos  stands  on  the  same  ground  with  the  people 
at  large.  But  on  the  basis  of  these  received  beliefs  he  builds 
up  a  very  different  theory.  The  people  rejoiced  at  the  out- 
ward prosperity  which  they  enjoyed  as  evidence  of  Yah- 
weh's being  altogether  favourable.  Victories  at  Lo-debar 
and  Karnaim  were  fresh  in  their  minds  and  were  taken  to 
be  the  earnest  of  more  to  follow  (Amos  6  :  13).  They,  on 
their  part,  were  sure  that  they  were  gratifying  Yahweh 
by  their  lavish  sacrifices.  Was  not  the  covenant  an  agree- 
ment that  he  would  help  them  against  their  enemies  if  he 
received  the  firstlings,  the  first-fruits,  and  the  observance  of 
the  great  festivals? 

Amos  answers  by  a  flat  contradiction,  and  by  the  unheard- 
of  declaration  that  Yahweh  does  not  require  sacrifice  but 
righteousness  between  man  and  man.  In  the  material  pros- 
perity on  which  the  people  laid  so  much  stress  the  prophet 
saw  only  the  social  evils  which  prosperity  had  fostered. 
The  sacrifices  are  to  him  not  only  something  indifferent,  they 
are  even  contemptible:  "Come  to  Bethel  and  transgress! 
To  Gilgal  and  multiply  transgression!  Bring  your  sacri- 


AMOS  AND  HOSE  A  135 

fices  in  the  morning  and  your  tithes  the  third  day!  Offer 
your  thanksgiving  sacrifice  of  leavened  bread,  and  proclaim 
free-will  offerings — this  pleases  you,  O  house  of  Israel!" 
(4  :  4  /.)  The  intimation  is  that  all  this  is  mere  will- 
worship,  recreation  and  dissipation  for  the  people,  but  of 
no  value  to  Yahweh.  And,  thinking  his  irony  might  not  be 
understood,  the  prophet  tells  in  plain  words  what  Yahweh 
means:  "I  hate,  I  despise  your  feasts,  and  I  take  no  delight 
in  your  solemn  assemblies;  though  you  offer  me  your  burnt- 
offerings  and  sacrifices  I  will  not  accept  them,  neither  will 
I  regard  the  peace-offerings  of  your  fed  beasts"  (5  : 21). 
And,  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  Amos  goes  the  length  of 
denying  that  the  cultus  was  observed  in  the  wilderness,  the 
time  when,  according  to  common  consent,  the  relations  of 
Yahweh  and  his  people  were  at  their  best:  "Was  it  sacrifices 
and  offerings  that  you  brought  me  in  the  wilderness  forty 
years,  O  house  of  Israel?"  It  is  evident  that  a  strong  nega- 
tive is  implied  in  the  question.1 

Instead  of  being  gratified  by  the  lavish  offerings,  Yahweh 
is  indignant  at  the  sins  of  his  people  and  is  about  to  destroy 
them — such  is  the  conviction  of  Amos.  What  rouses  his 
indignation  is  the  social  condition  of  Israel.  Yahweh  is 
the  protector  of  the  poor  and  will  avenge  their  wrongs.  In 
a  sense  this  was  not  new.  By  tradition,  Yahweh,  the  tribal 
God,  was  brother  and  friend  of  every  member  of  the  clan. 
But  Amos  gave  the  principle  a  broader  construction.  Yah- 
weh is  the  God  of  righteousness  and  requires  right  conduct 
even  from  men  outside  Israel:  "For  three  crimes  of  Da- 
mascus or  for  four  I  will  not  turn  back,  because  they  have 
threshed  Gilead  with  threshing  instruments  of  iron;  and  I 
will  send  a  fire  into  the  house  of  Hazael  and  it  shall  devour 
the  palaces  of  Benhadad"  (1  :  3-5).  In  like  terms  Amos 
threatens  Ammon  and  Moab,  and  then  turns  to  Israel: 
"Thus  says  Yahweh:  For  three  crimes  of  Israel,  or  for  four, 
I  will  not  turn  back;  because  they  have  sold  the  righteous 

1  The  intent  of  the  verse  (5  :  25)  is  plain,  though  the  context  is  ob- 
scure and  probably  interpolated. 


136  THE  KELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

for  silver  and  the  needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes;  they  trample 
the  head  of  the  poor  and  tread  down  the  meek;  a  man  and 
his  father  go  to  the  woman  to  pollute  my  name;  they  lay 
themselves  down  beside  every  altar  on  clothes  taken  in 
pledge,  and  in  the  house  of  their  God  they  drink  the  wine  of 
such  as  have  been  fined "  (2  :  6-8).  The  accusation  is  that 
the  lavish  feasts  at  the  sanctuaries  are  based  upon  oppres- 
sion and  extortion.  Those  who  should  administer  justice 
turn  it  to  wormwood  (5  :  7),  they  take  bribes  (5  :  12),  and 
hate  the  man  who  rebukes  them  (5  :  10).  The  sins  of  Israel 
are  such  as  to  astonish  the  nations;  Philistines  and  Egyp- 
tians are  invited  to  witness  the  tumults  in  Samaria  and  the 
oppressions  in  the  midst  of  it  (3  :  9/.).  The  fault  is  with 
the  chief  men:  "Woe  to  the  secure  in  Samaria,  the  distin- 
guished men  of  the  chief  of  the  nations,  who  think  the  evil 
day  far  away,  yet  bring  it  near  by  injustice  and  violence" 
(6  :  1-3).  The  women  are  as  bad  as  the  men,  urging  their 
husbands  on  to  further  oppression  that  they  may  have 
wherewith  to  indulge  their  appetite  for  drink  (4  :  1). 

That  punishment  must  follow  is  the  firm  conviction  of 
the  prophet.  What  strikes  him  is  the  unreason  of  those 
who  think  otherwise — as  though  the  evil  day  which  they 
think  far  off  would  not  necessarily  follow  the  violence  in 
which  they  indulge.  To  neglect  this  sequence  of  cause  and 
effect  is  as  unreasonable  as  to  plough  the  sea  with  oxen,  or 
to  attempt  the  cliffs  of  the  chamois  on  horseback  (6  :  12). 
Warnings  had  in  fact  been  given  them.  Twice  had  Yah- 
weh  set  out  to  execute  his  vengeance;  once  with  locusts, 
once  with  fire.  Now  this  third  time  the  plumb-line  is  ap- 
plied to  the  wall  and  reveals  its  tottering  condition:  "The 
high  places  of  Isaac  shall  be  destroyed,  and  the  sanctuaries 
of  Israel  laid  waste,  and  I  will  stand  against  the  house  of 
Jeroboam  with  the  sword"  (7  :  1-9).  It  was  this  culmina- 
tion of  the  discourse  at  Bethel  which  roused  the  anger  of 
the  priest.  No  other  direct  denunciation  of  the  royal  house 
is  recorded,  but  there  are  plenty  of  declarations  concerning 
the  nation:  "As  the  shepherd  rescues  out  of  the  mouth  of 


AMOS  AND  HOSEA  137 

the  lion  two  legs  or  the  piece  of  an  ear,  so  shall  the  sons 
of  Israel  be  rescued  who  sit  in  Samaria  in  the  corner  of  a 
couch  and  on  the  cushions  of  a  bed"  (3  :  12).  There  is 
here  no  thought  of  a  remnant;  what  is  sarcastically  said  to 
be  rescued  is  not  worth  calling  a  remnant.  The  two  shank 
bones  or  the  piece  of  the  ear  are  only  evidence  that  the 
sheep  has  indeed  been  destroyed  (cf.  Ex.  22  :  12). 

In  his  final  vision  Amos  sees  Yahweh  himself  standing 
in  his  temple  at  Bethel  and  shaking  the  building  on  the 
heads  of  the  worshippers,  with  the  declaration:  "I  will 
slay  the  last  of  them  with  the  sword;  not  one  of  them  shall 
flee  away  and  not  one  of  them  shall  escape.  Though  they 
dig  into  Sheol,  thence  shall  my  hand  take  them;  and  though 
they  climb  into  heaven,  thence  will  I  bring  them  down; 
though  they  be  hid  in  the  top  of  Carmel  I  will  search  and 
take  them  out  thence;  and  though  they  be  hid  from  my 
sight  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  thence  will  I  command  the 
serpent  and  it  shall  bite  them;  and  though  they  go  into 
captivity  before  their  enemies,  thence  will  I  command  the 
sword  and  it  shall  slay  them;  and  I  will  set  my  eyes  upon 
them  for  evil  and  not  for  good"  (9  :  1-4).1  It  would  be 
difficult  to  be  more  explicit.  The  message  of  Amos  was  one 
of  destruction,  complete  and  irremediable. 

It  does  not  seem  hazardous  to  assert  that  Amos  was  an 
acute  observer  of  the  movements  of  the  nations  of  western 
Asia.  The  great  world-power,  whose  capital  was  Nineveh, 
was  showing  renewed  activity  about  this  time.  Amos,  to 
be  sure,  does  not  distinctly  say  that  he  anticipates  an  in- 
vasion by  the  Assyrian  army.  But  he  could  not  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  Damascus  was  already  hard  pressed 
by  this  formidable  foe,  and  it  was  easy  to  conclude  that 
Israel  would  come  next  in  the  sequence.  Amos,  indeed, 
thinks  less  of  the  instrument  than  of  him  who  wields  it.  To 
him  the  overshadowing  thought  was  that  Yahweh  was 

1 1  have  quoted  the  whole  passage  because  it  makes  plain,  if  anything 
can,  that  the  conclusion  of  the  book  which  speaks  of  a  relenting  on 
the  part  of  Yahweh  cannot  be  by  Amos. 


138  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

making  use  of  this  instrument  for  the  punishment  of  all 
those  nations  which  had  been  guilty  of  man's  inhumanity 
to  man.  That  Yahweh  should  make  use  of  a  foreign  nation 
to  punish  his  own  people  was  something  which  the  ordinary 
Israelite  could  hardly  understand.  This,  however,  was  in 
fact  the  first  step  in  the  promotion  of  the  God  of  Israel  to 
his  transcendent  position  as  the  ruler  of  the  whole  world. 
When  the  events  of  the  Exile  emphasised  the  message  of  the 
prophets  the  common  people  began  to  apprehend  this  sub- 
lime conception. 

In  the  history  of  Christian  theology  undue  emphasis  has 
been  placed  on  the  predictive  element  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. From  our  present  more  historical  point  of  view  we 
see  that  this  element  was  in  the  minds  of  the  prophets  them- 
selves of  subordinate  importance.  They  did  not  suppose 
they  were  drawing  up  a  scheme  of  the  world's  history. 
Their  minds  were  occupied  with  the  fate  of  their  own  peo- 
ple. They  claimed,  indeed,  to  be  in  such  relations  to  Yah- 
weh that  they  could  interpret  his  will  to  men  who  were 
blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  These  signs  of  the  times 
proved  to  them  that  unless  Israel  should  turn  from  its  evil 
ways,  it  would  surely  be  destroyed.  Their  concern  was 
with  the  nation  and  not  with  the  individual.  Where  they 
denounce  certain  classes  of  the  community,  they  have  the 
sins  of  individuals  in  mind,  of  course,  for  sin  is  a  personal 
matter,  but  the  denunciation  is  motived  by  the  thought 
that  the  sins  of  these  classes  are  bringing  the  nation  to 
ruin.V  Amos,  at  any  rate,  gave  no  thought  to  the  fate  of 
individuals,  whether  in  this  world  or  in  the  next,  except  so 
far  as  the  individual  was  a  part  of  the  community. 

Since  the  evils  against  which  the  prophets  declaimed  are 
social  evils,  these  preachers  are  often  called  social  reformers, 
as  though  they  aimed  to  reconstruct  society  in  such  a  way 
as  to  secure  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  No 
doubt  they  desired  social  regeneration,  but  the  form  in  which 
they  clothed  this  ideal  was  not  that  of  the  modern  social 
reformer.  What  they  sought  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  will 


AMOS  AND  HOSE  A  139 

of  Yahweh.  In  other  words,  they  were  religious  idealists. 
Doubtless  in  the  last  analysis  they  were  moved  by  sym- 
pathy with  their  afflicted  fellow  men,  but  this  sympathy 
was  wholly  dominated  by  their  religious  faith.  The  sym- 
pathy was  objectified  in  Yahweh  before  it  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  men.  They  defined  the  oppression  and  violence 
which  they  saw  not  as  social  wrong  but  as  sin,  transgression 
of  the  will  of  the  Almighty. 

What  Amos  knew  and  what  he  thought  everybody  ought 
to  know  was  thatHhis  will  of  the  Almighty  is  ethical  in  its 
demands.  When  he  exhorts:  "Seek  Yahweh  and  live!" 
he  makes  it  clear  that  he  has  no  ritual  service  in  mind,  for 
he  adds:  "Seek  not  Bethel,  enter  not  into  Gilgal,  and  pass 
not  to  Beersheba;  for  Gilgal  shall  surely  go  into  captivity 
and  Bethel  shall  come  to  nought.  Seek  Yahweh  and  live; 
lest  he  break  out  like  fire  in  the  house  of  Jacob,  and  there 
be  none  to  quench  it  in  Bethel.  Seek  good  and  not  evil, 
and  so  Yahweh,  God  of  Israel,  will  be  with  you  as  you  say. 
Hate  the  evil  and  love  the  good,  and  establish  justice  in  the 
gate"  (5 : 4/.  and  14/.).  The  verses  might  be  called  a  com- 
pendium of  Amos's  principles.  The  demand  which  he  was 
never  weary  of  making  is  reiterated  again  in  the  same  chap- 
ter: "Let  justice  flow  on  like  a  river,  and  righteousness  like 
a  perennial  stream"  (5 :  24).  The  very  fact  that  Israel  stood 
in  special  relations  to  Yahweh  made  it  more  imperative  that 
Israel  should  meet  these  demands:  "You  only  have  I  known 
of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth;  therefore  will  I  visit  upon 
you  all  your  guilt"  (3:2). 

It  will  be  evident  that  Amos  was  no  theologian.  He  no- 
where speculates  on  the  nature  of  Yahweh  and  his  relation 
to  the  world.  Whether  he  conceded  any  reality  to  the 
gods  of  the  nations  is  not  revealed  by  any  utterance  of  his. 
He  is  not  even  consistent  with  himself;  for,  although  he  con- 
cedes that  Israel  has  been  brought  up  from  Egypt  by  Yahweh 
("you  only  have  I  known"  he  makes  Yahweh  say),  yet  he 
holds  also  that  it  is  Yahweh  who  brought  the  Philistines  from 
Caphtor  and  the  Arameans  from  Kir  (9  :  7).  If  religious 


140  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

thinkers  in  Babylon  or  in  Egypt  had  developed  a  specula- 
tive monotheism  Amos  was  guiltless  of  any  knowledge  of 
their  systems.  His  monotheism,  if  such  it  was,  was  a  prac- 
tical monotheism.  Enough  for  him  that  Yahweh,  God  of 
Israel,  was  powerful  enough  to  punish  his  people  for  their 
sins,  and  that  he  would  use  the  nations  of  the  earth  for 
this  purpose.  His  power  extends  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  Israel,  and  his  ethical  will  is  enforced  upon  other  peoples. 
The  cruelty  of  the  Syrians  in  war,  the  barbarity  of  the 
Moabites  who  burned  the  bones  of  the  King  of  Edom  to  lime, 
are  certain  to  be  punished  by  the  same  Yahweh  who  stands 
up  to  judge  the  oppressors  in  Israel.  Yahweh,  the  God  of 
Israel,  is,  within  these  limits,  the  living  and  active  guardian 
of  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  Commonplace  as  this  seems 
to  us,  it  was  something  new  and  startling  in  Israel. 

Hosea,  the  younger  contemporary  of  Amos,  is  a  contrast 
to  him  in  almost  every  respect.  Amos  is  the  stern  moralist, 
sitting  in  judgment  on  his  people,  pronouncing  them  guilty, 
and  almost  rejoicing  to  see  that  justice  is  to  be  done.  Hosea, 
though  obliged  to  assent  to  the  correctness  of  the  verdict, 
yet  suffers  in  sympathy  with  the  condemned,  and  feels  all 
the  pain  and  shame  that  are  to  fall  upon  them  as  if  they 
were  his  own.  The  point  of  departure  for  his  preaching  is 
given  by  the  idea  we  have  already  alluded  to— the  idea  that 
the  prophet  is  in  such  close  relations  with  Yahweh  that  his 
actions  as  well  as  his  words  are  revelations  of  the  divine  will. 
Even  the  experiences  which  come  to  him  without  active  ef- 
fort on  his  own  part  may  give  him  intimations  of  the  higher 
will.  Hosea  had  a  wife  who  made  shipwreck  of  their  mar- 
ried life.  Reflecting  on  this  experience  the  prophet  saw  in 
it  something  divinely  ordained  to  teach  him  the  heart  of 
Yahweh  toward  Israel.  Yahweh  is  the  husband,  Israel  the 
wife,  and  the  wife  is  unfaithful. 

To  Amos  the  unfaithfulness  of  Israel  is  the  unfaithfulness 
of  a  servant.  Yahweh  commands  righteousness  between 
man  and  man;  Israel,  instead  of  obeying  the  command, 
disobeys,  and  then  seeks  to  make  the  dereliction  good  by 


AMOS  AND  HOSE  A  141 

flattering  the  master  with  another  kind  of  service,  devoting 
itself  to  the  cultus,  as  though  sacrifice  and  offering  could  be 
a  substitute  for  obedience.  Hosea  says  the  unfaithfulness 
is  the  unfaithfulness  of  a  wife.  The  ritual  is  not  mere  will- 
worship — the  substitution  of  something  else  in  place  of  obe- 
dience. It  is  the  choice  of  another  object  of  affection — 
the  wife's  preference  of  another  to  her  rightful  lord.  This 
other  is  Baal  who  has  usurped  the  place  of  Yahweh.  \  Hence 
the  wrath  of  Yahweh  is  jealousy,  the  most  intense  of  the 
passions.  The  defection  is,  indeed,  judged  from  the  ethical 
standard,  as  truly  as  by  Amos:  "Yahweh  has  an  indictment 
against  his  people,"  says  Hosea;  "there  is  no  fidelity  and  no 
kindness,  and  no  knowledge  of  Yahweh  in  the  land;  there 
is  nought  but  breaking  faith  and  killing  and  stealing  and 
committing  adultery"  (4  :  If.).  As  in  Amos,  prosperity  has 
led  to  luxury  and  excess.  "When  the  fruits  were  abundant, 
altars  were  multiplied;  when  the  land  was  prospered  the 
people  set  up  pillars  at  the  sanctuaries"  (10  :  1). 

As  in  Amos  also,  the  forefathers  were  acceptable,  but  they 
had  quickly  turned  away.  "  When  Israel  was  a  child  I  loved 
him  and  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt;  but  the  more  I  called 
the  more  they  went  from  me;  they  sacrificed  to  the  Baals 
and  burned  incense  to  the  images.  Yet  it  was  I  who  taught 
Ephraim  to  walk,  who  took  them  by  the  arms"  (11  :  1-3). 
This  choice  of  the  Baals  is  the  crowning  sin.  It  is  whore- 
dom, as  the  prophet  does  not  hesitate  to  say.  Israel  herself 
declares:  "I  will  go  after  my  lovers  who  give  me  my  bread 
and  my  wine,  my  wool  and  my  flax,  my  oil  and  my  drink" 
(2  :  7).  'Hosea  has  the  idea,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
historically  justified  that  the  popular  religion  is  of  Canaan- 
itish  origin.  ^The  divinity  worshipped  at  the  local  sanctu- 
aries, though  called  by  the  name  of  Yahweh,  was,  in  fact, 
the  Baal  of  the  early  inhabitants.  The  oracles  at  the  sacred 
trees,  the  sacrifices,  the  prostitution  of  the  devotees,  were  so 
many  evidences  of  Canaanitish  religion.  It  is  for  this  rea- 
son that  Hosea  denounces  the  priests  so  often.  Where  Amos 
condemns  the  nobles,  the  great  landed  proprietors,  because 


142  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

of  their  oppression  and  injustice,  Hosea  breaks  out  against 
the  priests.  To  him  the  people  are  perishing  for  lack  of  the 
knowledge  which  the  priests  ought  to  impart:  "Since  you 
have  rejected  knowledge  I  will  reject  you,  that  you  be  no 
longer  priest  to  me;  and  since  you  put  the  tora  of  your  God 
out  of  your  mind  I  will  put  your  children  out  of  my  mind. 
The  more  powerful  they  [the  priests]  become  the  more  they  sin 
against  me;  they  exchange  their  glory  for  shame;  they  feed 
on  the  sin  of  my  people  and  delight  in  their  guilt"  (4  :  6/.). 
To  understand  the  accusation  we  must  remember  that  the 
word  Wa,  often  translated  law,  means  the  instruction  of  the 
priest,  given  by  means  of  the  oracle.  Cases  of  dispute,  as 
we  saw  in  the  time  of  Moses,  were  brought  to  the  priests 
for  decision,  and  also  cases  where  a  trespass  had  been  com- 
mitted in  sacred  things.  The  imputation  is  that  the  priests 
manipulate  the  oracle  for  their  personal  profit,  and  that  they 
even  encourage  the  people  to  sin  in  order  that  they  may  im- 
pose penalties  upon  them,  exacting  fines  which  accrue  to  the 
sanctuary.  The  prophet  has  also  in  mind  the  lavish  festi- 
vals by  which  the  priests  attract  the  people  to  the  sanctu- 
aries, these  festivals  becoming  scenes  of  debauchery.  In  one 
passage  he  does  not  hesitate  to  accuse  the  priests  of  sins  of 
violence:  "Their  bands  are  like  highway  robbers,  they  mur- 
der on  the  road  to  Shechem"  (6:9). 

Amos  nowhere  objects  to  the  images  of  Yahweh,  though, 
doubtless,  he  included  them  in  his  condemnation  of  the  whole 
worship.  Hosea  is  more  specific.  The  golden  bulls  at  Bethel 
and  Dan  had  long  enjoyed  the  prestige  given  by  use  and  wont. 
They  had  been  the  objects  of  worship  for  two  hundred  years. 
If  forbidden  by  early  documents  the  prohibition  had  not 
been  taken  seriously.  Hosea  makes  his  position  clear  by 
saying  that  Yahweh  has  cast  off  the  calf  of  Samaria,  by 
which  he  means  the  one  at  Bethel,  the  chief  sacred  object 
in  the  northern  kingdom  (8  :  5).  In  another  passage  he 
says  that  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria  shall  be  in  terror  for 
the  calf  of  Bethel,  and  that  it  shall  be  carried  away  as  a 
gift  to  the  great  king  (10  :  5/.).  It  seems  clear,  therefore, 


AMOS  AND  HOSEA  143 

that  the  first  effective  opposition  to  the  images  of  Yahweh 
dates  from  Hosea. 

Amos  and  Hosea  agree  in  rejecting  the  popular  religion, 
and  they  agree  further  in  stating  their  positive  programme. 
What  Yahweh  desires  is  not  sacrifice,  but  kindness,  love  of 
man  for  his  fellow  man  (6:6).  Yahweh  is  a  God  of  justice, 
and  from  the  house  of  Jehu  he  will  require  the  blood  shed  at 
Jezreel  (1  :  4).  The  declaration  is  the  more  remarkable  in 
that  the  blood  shed  at  Jezreel  was  shed  in  obedience  to  the 
prophetic  champion  of  the  rights  of  Yahweh.  It  does  not 
seem  extravagant  to  conclude  that  the  prophets  have  dis- 
covered the  vanity  of  political  remedies  for  moral  evils. 
The  frequent  changes  of  dynasty  in  this  period  instead  of 
bringing  about  a  better  state  of  things  had  rather  aggravated 
the  corruption  of  the  people,  of  which  indeed  it  was  the  fruit 
and  evidence.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  Hosea  rejected  the 
kingship  and  desired  a  return  to  the  old  tribal  organisation; 
but  this  is  far  from  evident.  He  does,  indeed,  believe  that 
the  existing  rulers  are  not  the  men  to  save  the  people.  "They 
make  kings  but  not  of  my  will;  they  set  up  princes  but  not 
of  my  knowledge"  (8:4).  What  the  prophet  attempts  to 
set  forth  is  the  vanity  of  political  devices.  Whether  a  king 
after  God's  own  heart  would  be  able  to  help  he  does  not  say. 
The  actually  existing  monarchy  is  of  no  avail:  "Where  is 
now  thy  king  that  shall  save  thee?  And  thy  rulers  that  they 
may  vindicate  thee?  Concerning  whom  thou  saidst:  'Give 
me  a  King  and  princes!'  I  gave  thee  a  king  in  my  wrath, 
and  I  take  him  away  in  my  fury"  (13  :  10/.).  Distrust  of 
political  devices  extends,  as  we  should  expect,  to  the  current 
diplomacy:  "Ephraim  is  like  a  silly  dove  without  under- 
standing; now  they  call  to  Egypt,  now  they  go  to  Assyria" 
(7  :  11).  "When  Ephraim  saw  his  sickness  and  Israel  his 
wound,  then  went  Ephraim  to  Assyria  and  sent  to  the  great 
king;  but  he  is  not  able  to  cure  you,  neither  will  he  heal 
you  of  your  wound"  (5  : 13).  The  very  nations  to  whom 
they  appeal  will  be  the  instruments  of  their  destruction: 
"  They  shall  not  dwell  in  Yahweh's  land;  Ephraim  shall 


144  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

return  to  Egypt  and  in  Assyria  shall  he  eat  unclean  food" 
(9  :  3). 

This  recapitulation  of  the  main  points  of  Hosea's  teaching 
gives  little  idea  of  the  passion  which  filled  his  soul.  The 
situation  as  he  regarded  it  was  indeed  desperate,  and  he  was 
in  a  heat  of  indignation  and  grief.  The  invasion  of  the  land 
seems  to  him  so  imminent  that  he  urges  the  blowing  of  the 
alarm  at  once  (5  :  8-10).  The  greatness  of  the  love  which 
Yahweh  has  had  for  his  people  is  the  measure  of  the  wrath, 
now  that  his  wooing  has  been  rejected.  Yet  there  is  a  strug- 
gle as  his  love  still  tries  to  assert  itself:  "How  shall  I  give 
thee  up,  Ephraim?  How  shall  I  cast  thee  off,  Israel?  How 
shall  I  make  thee  as  Admah?  How  shall  I  set  thee  as  Zeboim? 
My  heart  revolts  within  me,  my  compassion  is  kindled.  Yet 
shall  I  not  execute  the  fierceness  of  my  anger?  Shall  I  not 
destroy  Ephraim?  I  am  God  and  not  man,  the  holy  one  in 
the  midst  of  thee,  and  I  must  come  in  wrath"  (11  :  8/.). 
The  ordinary  translation  reverses  the  meaning  of  this  pas- 
sage; the  conflict  in  the  heart  of  Yahweh  results  in  the  de- 
termination to  go  on  with  the  work  of  punishment.  The 
allusion  to  his  holiness,  the  quality  which  separates  God  from 
man  and  which  reacts  against  human  sin,  is  the  pledge  that 
he  will  execute  justice  however  much  his  love  may  plead  for 
the  offender.  If  we  were  in  doubt  the  following  passage 
would  check  any  illusion:  "Therefore  am  I  unto  them  like 
a  lion;  as  a  leopard  will  I  watch  by  the  way;  I  will  meet 
them  like  a  bear  robbed  of  her  whelps,  and  will  rend  the  en- 
closure of  their  heart;  there  will  I  devour  them  like  a  lion, 
like  a  wild  beast  tear  them  in  pieces"  (13  :  7/.).  The  cul- 
mination of  this  chapter,  which  is,  in  fact,  the  culmination  of 
Hosea's  preaching,  is  in  the  same  tone:  "Shall  I  ransom 
them  from  the  power  of  Sheol?  shall  I  redeem  them  from 
death?  Rather,  bring  on  thy  plagues,  O  Death!  Hither 
with  thy  torments,  O  Sheol!  Repentance  shall  be  hid  from 
my  eyes"  (13  :  14). 

Such  passages  seem  to  leave  no  room  for  hope,  and  in  view 
of  them  we  cannot  suppose  those  sections  of  the  book  of 


AMOS  AND  HOSEA  145 

Hosea  which  predict  a  restoration  to  be  genuine  utterances 
of'the  prophet.1  An  utterance  which  seems  at  first  blush  to 
express  the  repentance  of  the  people  is  introduced  only  to 
show  their  incurable  levity:  "In  their  affliction  they  will 
seek  me  and  say:  'Come  let  us  return  unto  Yahweh,  for  he 
has  torn  and  he  will  heal;  he  has  smitten  and  he  will  bind  us 
up ' "  (6  : 1) .  The  answer  of  Yahweh  is :  "  What  shall  I  do  to 
thee,  Ephraim?  What  shall  I  do  to  thee,  Israel?  Your  piety 
is  like  the  morning  mist,  like  the  dew  which  soon  melts  away. 
Therefore  have  I  smitten  them  by  the  prophets,  have  slain 
them  by  the  words  of  my  mouth"  (6:4).  The  immediate 
context  gives  a  renewed  declaration  of  the  people's  wicked- 
ness, and  makes  it  clear  that  the  prophet  had  no  confidence 
in  any  professions  of  repentance.  Whether  an  individual 
here  and  there  was  impressed  by  the  preaching  of  the  prophet 
does  not  appear.  These  preachers,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
thinking  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

Our  study  should  make  clear  to  us  the  contribution  made 
by  Hosea  to  religious  thinking.  *To  him  Yahweh  is  not  sim- 
ply the  God  who  requires  justice  between  man  and  man;  he 
is  the  God  who  seeks  the  love  of  his  people,  a  love  that  will 
manifest  itself  in  the  doing  of  his  will.  It  was  because  the 
love  was  rejected  that  he  was  compelled  to  punish,  though 
his  own  heart  was  torn  by  the  necessity.  What  will  become 
of  him  when  his  people  is  destroyed  is  a  question  not  raised 
by  the  prophet.  Doubtless  the  faith  which  was  so  deeply 
convinced  of  his  love,  his  power,  and  his  justice  was  content 
to  leave  the  future  with  him.  It  does  not  even  appear  that 
Hosea  was  a  monotheist  in  our  sense  of  the  word;  the  bitter- 
ness with  which  he  declaims  against  the  Baals  indicates  that 
he  had  some  sort  of  belief  in  their  real  existence,  and  his  decla- 
ration that  other  lands  than  Yahweh's  are  unclean  shows 
that  in  his  view  other  divinities  had  power  there.  Yet  the 
vividness  with  which  Hosea  conceived  the  relation  of  Yahweh 
to  Israel  as  a  marriage  prepared  the  way  for  monotheism, 

1  The  concluding  exhortation  of  the  book  (14  :  2-10)  must  be  judged 
like  the  conclusion  of  Amos. 


146  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

for  it  impressed  upon  the  people  the  thought  that  Yahweh 
tolerates  no  rival  in  the  affections  of  his  people.  Both 
Jewish  and  Christian  thinkers  have  given  prominent  expres- 
sion to  this  conception  of  Hosea. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ISAIAH 

WITH  the  fall  of  Samaria  in  721  northern  Israel  ceased  to 
play  a  part  in  history,  and  the  mission  of  the  Hebrew  race 
was  intrusted  to  Judah.  With  reference  to  religion  we  may 
say  that  the  centre  of  interest  had  shifted  to  Judah  before 
the  fall  of  Samaria,  for  Isaiah,  one  of  the  most  influential  of 
the  prophets,  began  his  career  about  740.  Before  studying 
him  we  may  briefly  notice  his  contemporary,  Micah,  frag- 
ments of  whose  discourses  are  embedded  in  the  book  which 
bears  his  name.  We  might  suppose  Micah  to  be  the  man 
who  transplanted  the  prophetic  movement  from  Israel  to 
Judah,  for  he  seems  to  have  been  a  disciple  of  Amos.  Like 
Aiaos,  he  was  a  simple-hearted  countryman  who  was  revolted 
by  the  corruptions  of  city  life.  His  conception  of  his  office 
is  like  that  of  the  older  prophet — he  regards  himself  as  a 
plain-spoken  warner,  "full  of  might  by  the  spirit  of  Yahweh, 
to  declare  unto  Jacob  his  transgression  and  to  Israel  his  sin" 
(Micah  3:8).  As  the  transgression  of  Israel  was  concen- 
trated at  Samaria,  so  the  sin  of  Judah  was  concentrated  at 
Jerusalem  (1:5).  The  phenomenon  is  too  familiar  to  need 
comment;  in  the  great  cities  vice  makes  itself  more  odiously 
visible  than  in  the  smaller  towns  and  villages.  In  the  cities 
the  rich  and  the  devotees  of  pleasure  congregate,  and  there 
they  find  those  who  minister  to  their  profligacy.  This  is 
what  impressed  the  preacher  who  was  accustomed  to  the 
simple  life  of  the  country. 

The  details  given  by  Micah  are  much  like  what  we  read 
in  Amos.  The  nobles  are  covetous  and  oppressive;  they 
devise  iniquity  on  their  beds  and  when  the  morning  comes 

147 


148  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

they  put  their  plans  into  effect;  they  covet  fields  and  seize 
them,  houses  and  take  them;  so  they  oppress  a  man  and 
his  house,  a  man  and  his  inheritance  (2  :  If.).  They  do 
not  hesitate  to  evict  the  women  of  their  people  from  their 
homes,  and  they  sell  the  children  into  slavery  because  of 
debt  (2  :  9).  They  plunder  travellers  on  the  highway,  and 
when  they  are  rebuked  by  the  prophet  they  bid  him  hold 
his  peace.  Yet  they  are  the  ones  who  ought  to  know  better: 
"Is  it  not  for  you,  chiefs  of  Jacob,  is  it  not  for  you  to 
know  justice?  Yet  they  hate  the  good  and  love  the  evil, 
tear  the  skin  from  men's  bodies  and  the  flesh  from  their 
bones"  (3 :  1  /.).  While  they  silence  the  true  prophets,  they 
encourage  the  false  who  drivel  of  wine  and  strong  drink 
(2  : 11).  Prophets,  seers,  and  soothsayers,  all  are  in  the  same 
condemnation,  and  the  same  shame  will  overtake  them  all. 
Their  venality  is  too  evident:  "If  one  does  not  give  them  to 
eat,  against  him  they  declare  war"  (3  :  5).  Deceiving  the 
people  and  pandering  to  their  vices,  they  lead  them  on  to 
their  destruction.  Because  of  this  false  teaching  Zion  is 
built  up  in  blood,  and  Jerusalem  in  iniquity.  Yet  the  evil- 
doers are  confident  that  Yahweh  is  in  the  midst  of  them 
and  that  no  evil  will  come  upon  them  (3  :  11).  The  sequel 
is  plainly  evident  to  the  prophet,  and  is  announced  in  words 
that  were  remembered  long  after  his  time:  "Therefore  Zion 
shall  be  ploughed  as  a  field  for  your  sake,  and  Jerusalem 
shall  be  ruins,  and  the  temple  mount  overgrown  with  bushes" 
(3  :  12;  cf.  the  reference  in  Jer.  26  :  18).  The  close  parallel 
with  Amos  must  be  evident — justice  will  be  done  though  the 
heavens  fall. 

In  Isaiah  we  find  a  man  of  more  genial  temper  and  a  larger 
outlook.  His  general  position,  however,  is  the  same  taken 
by  his  predecessors,  and  we  have  no  difficulty  in  supposing 
that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  words  of  Amos  and  Hosea. 
With  Hosea  he  shared  the  belief  that  the  life  of  the  prophet 
is  shaped  by  his  calling.  He  says  that  he  and  the  children 
God  has  given  him  are  signs  and  portents  in  Israel.  He 
named  one  of  his  sons  Shear-jashub,  and  another  Maher- 


ISAIAH  149 

shalal-hash-baz  in  order  to  emphasise  his  message.  At  one 
time  he  went  naked  and  barefoot  for  three  years,  so  as  to 
impress  upon  his  people  the  impending  fate  of  Egypt  (20  : 
1-6).  Perhaps  if  we  had  the  full  record  of  his  life  we  should 
have  more  instances  of  such  symbolic  actions,  but  these 
are  enough  to  show  his  conception  of  the  prophet's  office 
and  work,  or  rather  of  the  complete  identification  of  the 
prophet's  person  and  his  work.  Yet  there  is  little  of  the 
enthusiastic  visionary  in  Isaiah,  and  the  impression  made  by 
his  words  is  that  of  a  wise  and  sane  counsellor,  preaching 
righteousness  to  the  people,  and  even  confronting  the  mon- 
arch in  the  calm  consciousness  of  a  man  who  is  sure  that  he 
has  the  right  on  his  side. 

The  vision  by  which  Isaiah  was  determined  to  undertake 
the  work  of  a  prophet  (related  in  chapter  6)  is  one  of  the 
most  impressive  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  it  reveals  as 
clearly  as  any  part  of  the  book  what  was  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple of  his  life.  He  saw  Yahweh,  he  says,  sitting  on  a  lofty 
throne  in  the  temple.  We  can  hardly  doubt  that  in  the 
mind  of  Isaiah  the  Jerusalem  temple  was  the  dwelling-place 
of  Israel's  God.  Amos  and  Hosea  seem  not  to  have  given 
the  same  importance  to  any  of  the  sanctuaries  of  the 
northern  kingdom.  In  one  instance,  indeed,  Amos  sees 
Yahweh  standing  in  or  over  the  temple  at  Bethel,  but  this 
is  only  in  order  to  throw  the  building  down  and  thus  des- 
troy the  worshippers.  To  these  earlier  prophets  Bethel  was 
no  more  than  Gilgal  or  any  of  the  others — Yahweh  was  not 
in  them.  But  to  Isaiah  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  did  not 
stand  on  the  same  level  with  the  other  sanctuaries  of  the 
land;  Yahweh  had  his  dwelling  there  as  he  had  not  in  other 
places  of  worship.  This  attitude  toward  the  temple  became 
influential  in  the  later  development  of  religious  belief. 

In  this  temple  Yahweh  had  his  throne,  where  he  was 
visible  to  the  spiritual  eye  and  in  human  form,  though 
of  supernal  brightness.  He  was  attended  by  the  seraphim, 
mythological  figures  which  are  nowhere  else  mentioned  in 
the  Old  Testament.  Possibly  they  were  originally  the  per- 


150  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Bonification  of  the  lightnings.  Elsewhere  we  read  of  the 
cherubim  as  attendants  of  the  throne,  or  the  host  of  heaven 
takes  this  office  (I  Kings  22  :  19).  If  once  serpentine  in 
form  (the  word  saraph  is  used  to  denote  the  fiery  serpents 
which  infest  the  desert),  they  have  now  become  partly  hu- 
manised, possessing  hands  and  feet,  though  also  furnished 
with  wings.  Their  office  is  to  proclaim  the  uniqueness  of 
Yahweh,  his  apartness  from  earthly  things.  This  sanctity 
is  proclaimed  as  a  warning,  such  as  Moses  received  at  the 
bush.  To  approach  the  divinity  without  undergoing  some 
cleansing  process  is  dangerous.  Isaiah  realises  this,  for  he 
feels  that  he  is  undone:  "I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips  and  I 
dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips,"  is  his  cry. 
The  conception  of  holiness  seems  on  the  way  from  the 
physical  to  the  ethical,  for  the  uncleanness  of  the  lips  must 
refer  to  sinful  utterance.  A  coal  from  the  altar  removes 
the  defilement,  for  fire,  especially  sacred  fire,  is  one  of  the 
most  potent  means  of  purification.  In  connection  with  the 
proclamation  of  Yahweh's  sanctity  the  seraphim  affirm  that 
the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory.  As  the  sun  shines  from 
one  part  of  heaven  to  the  other,  so  Yahweh  enlightens  his 
whole  creation.  This  universalism  is  beyond  anything  we 
have  yet  found  in  Israel. 

Isaiah's  readiness  to  volunteer  in  response  to  the  divine 
call  for  a  messenger  probably  indicates  that  he  had  been 
meditating  on  the  need  of  the  hour,  and  had  debated  the 
question  whether  he  was  not  the  man  to  carry  the  warn- 
ing to  his  people.  The  form  of  the  command  is,  however, 
strange:  "Go  and  tell  this  people:  'Hear  on,  but  under- 
stand not;  gaze  on,  but  perceive  not!'  Make  the  mind  of 
this  people  stupid  and  make  their  ears  dull,  besmear  their 
eyes  too,  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with  their 
ears  and  understand  with  their  heart,  and  their  health  be  re- 
stored" (6  :  9/.).  To  us  the  strangeness  is  in  the  concep- 
tion that  the  message  is  sent  not  to  heal  but  to  aggravate 
the  disease,  not  to  convert  but  to  harden  the  hearers.  Yet 
such  a  conception  is  not  foreign  to  the  Old  Testament 


ISAIAH  151 

writers.  Since  whatever  comes  to  pass  is  the  work  of  Yah- 
weh,  the  obstinacy  with  which  the  message  of  the  preacher 
is  so  often  confronted,  and  which  seems  to  result  from  the 
preaching,  must  be  the  result  intended  by  the  divinity. 
The  Pentateuchal  writer  had  no  difficulty  with  the  thought 
that  Yahweh  hardened  the  heart  of  Pharaoh.  Isaiah  him- 
self speaks  of  Yahweh  as  a  stone  of  stumbling,  a  trap,  and 
a  snare  to  both  houses  of  Israel  (8  :  14).  Isaiah,  in  other 
words,  dealt  with  the  hard  facts  of  life,  and  in  his  observa- 
tion Yahweh  did  often  seem  to  inflict  what  we  call  judicial 
blindness  by  the  means  which  would  seem  calculated  to  in- 
duce repentance.  In  another  passage  the  prophet  tells  the 
people :  "  Yahweh  has  poured  on  you  the  spirit  of  deep  sleep, 
and  has  closed  your  eyes  and  covered  your  heads"  (29  : 10). 
Holding  this  fixed  idea  of  the  divine  power,  these  earlier 
prophets  conceived  that  their  work  was  to  proclaim  the  will 
of  Yahweh  as  a  protest  rather  than  as  a  means  of  grace. 
This  we  have  found  to  be  the  case  with  Amos,  with  Hosea, 
and  with  Micah.  At  a  later  time  Jeremiah  declared  that 
the  earlier  prophets  had  spoken  of  war  and  of  pestilence 
and  of  calamity,  and  he  intimated  that  any  message  of  dif- 
ferent tenor  had  the  presumption  against  it.  It  is  quite 
conceivable  therefore  that  Isaiah  saw  from  the  beginning 
the  uselessness  of  any  attempt  to  bring  his  people  into  a 
better  frame  of  mind.  As  the  text  now  stands,  it  shows 
quite  clearly  that  he  regarded  himself  as  the  predictor  of 
evil.  He  asks  how  long  his  commission  is  to  run,  and  re- 
ceives for  answer:  "Until  the  cities  be  waste  without  in- 
habitant, and  houses  be  without  men,  and  the  land  becomes 
utterly  waste,  and  Yahweh  removes  men  far  away,  and  the 
forsaken  places  be  many  in  the  midst  of  the  land;  even  if 
there  be  a  tenth  in  it,  it  in  turn  shall  be  consumed  as  a 
terebinth  and  an  oak  whose  stump  alone  remains  when  they 
have  been  felled"  (6  ill/.).1  And  this  sombre  passage 

1  Later  editors,  who  were  familiar  with  the  thought  that  a  remnant 
would  be  preserved,  added  to  the  text  the  clause:  "The  holy  seed  is 
the  stump."  But  it  must  be  evident  that  this  contradicts  the  main 
idea  of  the  passage. 


152  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

does  not  stand  alone,  for  at  the  end  of  the  parable  of  the 
vineyard  Isaiah  says:  "Therefore  the  wrath  of  Yahweh 
burns  against  his  people,  and  he  stretches  his  hand  against 
it,  and  he  smites  it  till  the  mountains  shake,  and  the  corpses 
lie  like  mud  on  the  streets;  yet  his  wrath  is  not  turned  away, 
and  his  hand  is  still  stretched  out"  (5  :  25).  And  this  last 
sentence  recurs  again  and  again  as  though  to  impress  the 
thought  that  repeated  chastisements  had  had  no  effect  (cf. 
9  : 11,  16,  20,  and  10  :  4). 

Early  in  his  career,  then,  the  prophet,  like  Amos  and 
Hosea,  saw  only  the  threatened  destruction  of  the  people  of 
Yahweh  by  Yahweh  himself.  This  is  not  to  say  that  he 
held  to  this  expectation  through  life.  The  young  man 
sometimes  applies  his  theories  with  more  rigid  consistency 
than  the  man  who  has  had  larger  observation  of  life  and  char- 
acter. The  indignation  of  the  revolutionist  burns  hottest  in 
youth.  Isaiah's  early  message  is  accounted  for  by  his  lofty 
view  of  the  character  of  Yahweh.  His  favourite  name  for 
Yahweh  is:  "The  Holy  One  of  Israel."  And  with  him 
holiness  is  no  longer  a  physical  attribute.  Proof  is  found 
not  only  in  the  scene  described  above  but  in  the  express 
declaration  that  Yahweh  of  Hosts  is  exalted  by  justice  and 
the  Holy  God  shows  himself  holy  by  righteousness.1  One 
who  has  this  high  idea  of  God's  ethical  perfection  may  judge 
a  sinful  world  severely  and  expect  it  to  be  destroyed.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  in  Isaiah's  case  the  early  severity 
was  moderated  in  later  years.  Especially  when  the  invest- 
ment of  Jerusalem  by  the  Assyrians  threatened  to  destroy 
the  temple,  Yahweh's  own  dwelling,  he  reflected  on  the  blow 
that  would  thereby  be  struck  at  religion,  and  his  faith  af- 
firmed that  the  sacred  building  would  not  be  delivered  over 
to  the  enemy. 

The  chief  utterances  of  the  prophet,  however,  echo  the 
old  refrain  of  the  sins  of  Israel.  Calling  heaven  and  earth 
to  witness,  Yahweh  protests:  "Sons  have  I  nourished  and 

1  The  authenticity  of  the  verse  is  questioned  by  some  scholars,  but 
I  think  without  sufficient  reason  (5  :  16). 


ISAIAH  153 

brought  up,  but  they  have  rebelled  against  me.  The  ox 
knows  his  owner  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib;  Israel  does  not 
know,  my  people  does  not  consider"  (1  :  2/.).  And  the  bill 
of  particulars  follows.  First  of  all,  Yahweh  does  not  re- 
quire sacrifice:  "What  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  to 
me,  says  Yahweh;  I  have  had  enough  of  the  burnt-offerings 
of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts,  and  I  delight  not  in  the 
blood  of  bullocks  or  of  lambs  or  of  he-goats"  (1  :  ll/.). 
The  true  demand  of  Yahweh  is  for  righteousness  between 
man  and  man:  "Wash  you,  make  you  clean,  put  away  the 
evil  of  your  doings  from  before  my  eyes;  cease  to  do  evil, 
learn  to  do  well;  seek  justice,  relieve  the  oppressed,  judge 
the  fatherless,  take  up  the  cause  of  the  widow"  (1  :  16/.). 
We  are  already  familiar  with  such  expressions  of  the  pro- 
phetic conscience,  roused  by  the  spectacle  of  man's  tyranny 
and  hard-heartedness.  Like  Amos,  Isaiah  denounces  the 
rulers  as  most  to  blame:  "Yahweh  stands  up  to  judge  the 
people;  Yahweh  will  enter  into  judgment  with  the  elders  of 
his  people,  and  with  the  rulers  thereof:  It  is  you  who  have 
eaten  up  the  vineyard;  the  spoil  of  the  poor  is  in  your  houses; 
what  mean  you  that  you  crush  my  people  and  grind  the 
faces  of  the  poor?  says  Yahweh,  Lord  of  Hosts"  (3 :  13-15). 
The  women  of  the  upper  classes  come  in  for  a  sharp  rebuke 
(3  :  16-26),  and  the  priests  and  prophets  receive  castigation. 
These  are  pictured  as  they  sit  at  revelry,  apparently  in  the 
temple  itself,  and  make  merry  over  the  preacher  who  pre- 
sumes to  give  them  lessons  (28  :  9-11).  Their  example  is 
infectious,  for  the  common  people  also  "say  to  the  seers: 
See  not;  and  to  the  prophets,  Prophesy  not  unto  us  right 
things,  speak  unto  us  smooth  things,  prophesy  deceit,  turn 
from  the  way,  go  aside  from  the  path,  trouble  us  no  more 
with  Israel's  Holy  One"  (30  :  10/.). 

We  have  already  noticed  that  the  originality  of  Hosea 
consisted  in  his  application  of  the  relation  of  husband  and 
wife  to  the  relation  between  Yahweh  and  Israel.  Isaiah 
takes  up  this  figure  when  he  says:  "How  is  the  faithful  city 
become  a  harlot!"  (1  :  21.)  Apparently,  however,  he  is  not 


154  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

thinking  of  Baal  worship,  but  rather,  with  Amos,  of  the  ritual 
as  so  much  will-worship,  amusement  for  the  people,  but  not 
acceptable  to  Yahweh.  Isaiah  has  little  to  say  of  defection 
to  other  gods,  but  much  of  the  false  religiosity  of  the  people; 
their  religion  is  mere  externality;  they  draw  near  to  God 
with  their  lips  while  their  hearts  are  far  away;  their  fear  of 
him  (that  is,  their  religion)  is  a  commandment  of  men 
which  has  been  taught  them  (29  :  13). 

We  cannot  claim  great  originality  for  Isaiah,  therefore. 
His  ideas  are  those  common  to  the  prophetic  school.  But 
he  puts  these  ideas  into  powerful  expression.  A  fine  ex- 
ample is  the  parable  of  the  vineyard.  We  may  suppose  that 
the  people  had  gathered  at  the  temple  for  the  autumn  festi- 
val, satisfied  that  all  was  well  between  them  and  their  God. 
The  prophet  appears  as  one  of  the  revellers,  singing  them  a 
song  composed  in  the  light,  tripping  measure  appropriate  to 
the  vintage  season.  After  thus  attracting  their  attention 
he  breaks  out  with  an  objurgation  made  terrific  by  its  word- 
play: "The  vineyard  of  Yahweh  of  Hosts  is  the  house  of 
Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah  are  his  cherished  plantation; 
and  he  looked  for  justice,  but  behold  bloodshed;  for  right- 
eousness, but  behold  an  outcry"  (5  :  7).  What  sort  of  fruit 
the  vineyard  has  been  yielding  is  then  set  forth  in  a  series 
of  woes.  These  single  out  first  of  all  the  great  landed  pro- 
prietors, who  get  their  estates  by  crowding  out  their  poorer 
neighbours;  then  come  the  drunken  revellers,  who  rise  up 
early  that  they  may  follow  strong  drink,  who  tarry  late  into 
the  night  that  wine  may  inflame  them.  Next  in  the  list  are 
the  scoffers,  who  wish  the  day  of  Yahweh  to  come,  and  with 
them  the  perverse  reasoners  who  call  good  evil  and  evil 
good,  making  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason.  These 
are  apparently  the  politicians  who  defend  deception  as  the 
true  method  of  diplomacy,  and  regard  underhanded  mea- 
sures as  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  the  state.  The  unjust 
judges,  who  justify  the  wicked  for  a  bribe,  and  deprive  the 
righteous  of  his  standing  in  court,  close  the  list,  unless  we 
join  with  them  the  scribes  who  write  out  unjust  and  op- 


ISAIAH  155 

pressive  decrees.1  In  the  original  form  of  this  discourse  it 
is  probable  that  each  woe  had  its  appropriate  punishment. 
Some  of  these  have  now  disappeared  from  the  text,  but  it  is 
evident  that  they  included  dearth,  banishment,  pestilence, 
and  a  visitation  which  is  left  undefined  but  which  is  com- 
pared to  a  sweeping  storm  that  ruins  everything  in  its  path. 
The  part  which  the  prophets  took  in  political  movements 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  life  of  Isaiah.  He  shows  also  that 
the  political  interest  was  primarily  religious.  The  first  occa- 
sion when  he  took  part  in  public  affairs  was  the  invasion  of 
Judah  by  the  combined  forces  of  Israel  and  Damascus,  in  735. 
The  intention  was  to  compel  Judah  to  join  in  a  common 
movement  of  resistance  to  the  Assyrians.  The  sentiment  of 
the  people  of  Judah  seems  rather  to  have  favoured  the  in- 
vaders, if  we  may  judge  by  the  perturbation  of  Ahaz.  The 
king  saw  an  obvious  resource  in  calling  the  Assyrians  to  his 
assistance.  He  was  meditating  this  step  when  Isaiah  inter- 
vened and  attempted  to  dissuade  him.  The  prophet  saw 
that  the  proposed  arrangement  with  Assyria  would  bring 
Judah  into  a  subjection  which  would  prove  burdensome  and 
in  the  long  run  disastrous.  But  the  spring  of  his  opposi- 
tion was  not  any  view  of  expediency;  he  believed  that  Judah 
should  trust  to  Yahweh  and  refuse  the  arm  of  flesh.  To  mix 
in  the  affairs  of  the  nations  would  be  to  give  up  Judah's 
prerogative  as  the  people  of  Yahweh.  The  promise  of  the 
child  called  Immanuel  was  intended  simply  to  give  assur- 
ance that  in  the  immediate  future  the  two  threatening  pow- 
ers would  become  incapable  of  harm,  and  that  God's  inter- 
vention would  be  manifest  in  Judah.  Politically  this  meant 
that  it  was  unnecessary  to  call  upon  Assyria,  because  that 
nation  was  bound  to  act  for  its  own  sake,  and  any  submission 
on  the  part  of  Judah  would  be  a  gratuitous  assumption  of 
the  foreign  yoke.  Politically  sound  as  the  advice  was,  it 
was  evidently  motived  by  trust  in  Yahweh.2 

1  The  full  number  of  seven  woes  would  be  made  out  by  joining 
10  :  1-3,  to  those  in  chapter  5. 

2  The  boy  Maher-shalal-hash-baz  teaches  the  same  lesson  with  Im- 
manuel.    Before  he  should  be  able  to  say  father  or  mother  the  riches 


156  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

The  expectation  of  the  prophet  that  Damascus  and 
Ephraim  would  be  reduced  to  impotence  by  the  Assyrians 
was  amply  realised.  It  seems,  however,  that  he  expected  an 
invasion  of  Judah  at  the  same  time.  A  vigorous  passage 
describing  the  march  of  the  invading  army  has  been  pre- 
served to  us,  and  may  belong  in  this  period.  Whenever  it 
was  pronounced,  it  was  not  literally  fulfilled.  As  to  the  fate 
of  the  northern  kingdom,  however,  Isaiah  made  no  mistake. 
Their  stoutness  of  heart  did  not  deceive  him.  Not  long 
before  the  fall  of  Samaria  the  prophet  pronounced  the  spir- 
ited denunciation  of  the  drunkards  of  Ephraim  which  he 
used  later  as  a  text  for  his  discourse  against  the  leading  men  in 
Jerusalem  (chapter  28).  He  agrees  with  Amos  in  describing 
the  luxury  and  carelessness  of  the  people  in  Samaria,  on 
whose  horizon  the  storm-cloud  of  disaster  already  lowered. 

This  chapter  as  it  now  stands  introduces  us  to  the  third 
crisis  which  occurred  in  the  life  of  the  prophet.  This  is  the 
invasion  of  the  country  by  Sennacherib.  There  was  at  this 
time  a  joint  movement  among  the  Palestinian  powers  to 
throw  off  the  Assyrian  yoke.  It  was  encouraged  by  Egypt, 
and  apparently  Babylon  had  promised  to  revolt  at  the  same 
time.  Isaiah  had  protested  against  submission  to  Assyria 
in  the  time  of  Ahaz,  but  he  believed  that  Judah,  having  once 
accepted  the  relation  of  vassal,  should  be  faithful  to  its  obli- 
gations. To  revolt  would  be  dishonest  and  would  bring 
down  the  wrath  of  Yahweh.  His  deep-rooted  scepticism 
concerning  political  measures  made  him  protest  against  the 
Egyptian  alliance,  and  it  was  probably  reinforced  by  a 
sound  common  sense  which  took  an  accurate  measure  of 
Egyptian  pretensions.  It  was,  perhaps,  when  the  Egyptian 
alliance  had  been  consummated  that  the  joy  of  Jerusalem 
broke  out  in  immoderate  feasting:  "What  ails  thee  that  all 
thy  people  have  gone  up  to  the  housetops,  thou  who  art  full 
of  uproar,  tumultuous  city,  joyous  town?  .  .  .  The  Lord 
Yahweh  of  Hosts  calls  to  weeping  and  to  mourning,  and  to 

of  Damascus  and  the  spoil  of  Samaria  would  be  carried  away  by  the 
king  of  Assyria  (8  :  1-4). 


ISAIAH  157 

baldness,  and  to  girding  of  sackcloth;  but  behold,  joy  and 
gladness,  the  killing  of  oxen  and  the  slaughtering  of  sheep, 
the  eating  of  flesh  and  the  drinking  of  wine!"  (22  :  1,  12/.) 
What  the  people  hailed  as  a  day  of  deliverance  appeared 
to  the  prophet  as  a  day  of  perplexity  and  discomfiture. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  quote  the  passages  in  which  the 
prophet  pours  scorn  on  the  men  who  take  the  toilsome  jour- 
ney through  the  desert  to  seek  the  help  of  Egypt  and  to  flee 
to  the  shelter  of  Pharaoh  (30 : 1-6),  or  the  powerful  discourse 
in  which  he  describes  the  alliance  as  a  covenant  with  death 
and  a  compact  with  Sheol  (28  :  15).  Then,  as  now,  the 
diplomatists  thought  finesse  all-powerful;  the  prophet  had  a 
higher  ideal.  This  ideal,  to  be  sure,  found  negative  expres- 
sion for  the  most  part,  and  we  must  be  prepared  to  meet 
the  demand  that  a  fruitful  and  positive  programme  should 
be  formulated.  Had  Isaiah  any  positive  measures  to  recom- 
mend, or  was  he  simply  a  critic  of  the  existing  order?  To 
this  we  find  one  answer:  He  would  have  the  people  trust 
in  Yahweh.  Trust  in  Egypt  is  contrasted  with  trust  in 
Yahweh  (31  :  1-3).  The  classic  verse  in  which  he  formu- 
lates his  principle,  and  which  might  be  prefixed  as  motto 
to  his  book,  is:  "By  repenting  and  remaining  quiet  you 
would  have  been  delivered;  in  quietness  and  pious  trust 
you  would  have  found  your  strength"  (30  :  15).  In  the 
crisis  of  the  Ephraimitic  invasion  he  himself  illustrated  the 
true  state  of  mind  and  enunciated  it :  "  If  you  do  not  believe 
you  will  not  be  upheld"  (7  :  9),  or  to  attempt  to  reproduce 
the  play  on  words:  "If  you  do  not  hold  fast  you  shall  not 
be  held  fast."  In  the  more  acute  crisis  of  Sennacherib's 
invasion  he  uttered  the  well-known  words:  "Behold  I  lay 
in  Zion  a  stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious  foundation  stone: 
he  who  believes  shall  not  waver.  And  I  will  make  justice 
the  measuring  line,  and  righteousness  the  plumb- weight " 
(28  :  17).  The  positive  principle  thus  formulated  is:  "Do 
right  and  let  God  take  care  of  the  results." 

Isaiah  was  at  one  with  Amos  in  believing  that  Yahweh 
was  able  to  make  use  of  the  nations  as  instruments  of  his 


158  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

wrath.  He,  in  fact,  describes  the  Assyrian  as  the  rod  in 
his  hand  (10  :  5-1 1).1  But  the  whole  impression  made  by 
Isaiah  is  that  of  a  more  lofty  conception  of  God  than  that 
expressed  by  any  of  his  predecessors.  We  meet  in  Amos  the 
conception  of  a  day  of  Yahweh,  and  the  intimation  is  that 
the  people  at  large  had  a  traditional  expectation  of  such  a 
day.  To  them  it  was  a  day  in  which  Yahweh  would  tri- 
umph over  all  the  enemies  of  Israel;  to  Amos  it  was  a  day 
in  which  he  would  punish  the  evil-doers  in  Israel  itself.  This 
is  the  view  of  Isaiah  also,  but  he  brings  it  to  finer  expression: 
"Yahweh  has  a  day  for  all  that  is  proud  and  lofty,  for  all  that 
is  exalted  and  lifted  up;  for  cedars  of  Lebanon  and  oaks  of 
Bashan,  for  mountains  and  hills,  for  every  high  tower  and 
every  fenced  wall,  for  all  ships  of  Tarshish  and  all  stately 
vessels.  The  haughtiness  of  man  shall  be  bowed  down,  and 
the  loftiness  of  mankind  shall  be  brought  low,  and  Yahweh 
alone  will  be  exalted  in  that  day.  Men  shall  go  into  the 
caverns  of  the  rocks  and  into  the  holes  of  the  ground  at  the 
terror  of  Yahweh,  at  the  splendor  of  his  majesty  when  he 
arises  to  strike  awe  throughout  the  earth"  (2  :  12-19).  The 
sanctity  of  Yahweh  is  here  defined  for  us;  it  is  his  absolute 
supremacy  above  everything  earthly.  That  to  Isaiah  it  is 
ethical  as  well  as  physical  we  have  already  seen. 

Some  corollaries  of  Isaiah's  belief  were  perhaps  needful 
for  him  and  his  contemporaries,  though  their  survival  in 
the  popular  mind  wrought  mischief  in  a  later  generation. 
One  of  these  was  the  impregnability  of  Jerusalem.  The 
prophet's  inaugural  vision  has  shown  us  that  to  his  view 
Yahweh  dwelt  in  the  temple.  And  in  another  passage  he 
says:  "Yahweh  has  founded  Zion  and  in  her  the  afflicted 
of  his  people  take  refuge"  (14  :  32).  If  this  be  so,  the  con- 
clusion cannot  be  remote  that  the  sacred  place  will  not  be 
given  up  to  a  heathen  people.  This  thought  was  fully 
brought  home  to  the  prophet  at  the  great  crisis  of  Sennach- 

1  Unfortunately,  the  chapter  has  been  worked  over  by  a  later  hand, 
but  there  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  denying  the  substance  of  it  to 
Isaiah. 


ISAIAH  159 

crib's  invasion.  What  seems  clear  is  that  though  Isaiah 
had  been  predicting  disaster  when  the  people  were  most  con- 
fident of  success,  yet  when  the  situation  changed  for  the 
worse  his  faith  rose  to  the  assurance  that  the  worst  would 
not  be  inflicted;  Yahweh  would  not  give  his  sanctuary  over 
to  the  enemy-.  The  event  justified  the  prophet.  And  al- 
though, as  we  have  seen,  the  message  which  he  felt  called  to 
deliver  was  one  of  denunciation,  yet  time  may  have  modi- 
fied the  sternness  of  his  early  judgment.  We  cannot  argue, 
indeed,  from  the  name  of  his  oldest  son,  Shear-jashub  (A- 
remnant-shall-return)  for  it  may  have  meant  that  only  a 
remnant  would  survive  the  Ephraimitic  war.  But  when  we 
read,  "I  will  turn  my  hand  against  thee  and  smelt  out  all 
thy  dross;  I  will  remove  all  thine  alloy;  I  will  bring  back 
thy  judges  as  at  the  first,  and  thy  counsellors  as  at  the  be- 
ginning; thereafter  thou  shalt  be  called  Citadel  of  Right- 
eousness, Faithful  City"  (1  :  25-27),  we  see  how  distinct  in 
at  least  one  period  was  the  idea  of  purification  and  restora- 
tion. 

Exactly  how  the  prophet  conceived  the  state  of  the  com- 
monwealth after  the  purifying  process  should  have  taken 
effect  is  not  clear.  The  only  clew  we  have  is  the  reference 
to  the  band  of  disciples  whom  the  prophet  had  gathered 
about  him  and  to  whom  he  committed  a  record  of  his  spoken 
discourses  (8  :  16).  This  party,  we  may  suppose,  took  an 
active  interest  in  what  went  on  in  the  political  world  as  well 
as  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  The  line  was  not  drawn,  in 
fact,  between  the  secular  and  the  religious.  This  little  group 
was  probably  considerably  strengthened  after  the  verifica- 
tion of  Isaiah's  prediction  in  the  time  of  Sennacherib.  Pos- 
sibly they  were  the  active  instigators  of  Hezekiah's  reforms 
of  the  cultus  of  which  the  book  of  Kings  makes  mention. 
But  they  were  not  only  a  political  party,  they  were  also  a 
church,  a  religious  communion  finding  edification  in  the 
words  of  their  great  leader  and  cherishing  the  record  of 
these  words  when  he  himself  was  no  longer  with  them. 

Among  the  reforms  attributed  to  Hezekiah  there  is  one 


160  THE  KELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

which  seems  historically  attested.  This  is  the  destruction  of 
the  brazen  serpent  which  was  an  object  of  worship  in  the  tem- 
ple from  the  earliest  times.  The  legend  which  attributes  this 
idol  to  Moses  shows  not  only  its  venerable  antiquity  but 
possibly  also  that  it  was  regarded  as  an  image  of  Yahweh. 
Isaiah's  reaction  against  images  was  first  roused,  we  may  sup- 
pose, by  the  foreign  gods  brought  to  Jerusalem  by  Ahaz  when 
the  Assyrian  alliance  was  formed.  Opposition  to  the  alliance 
with  Egypt  would  intensify  the  feeling.  In  describing  the 
state  of  Judah  he  affirms  that  the  land  was  full  not  only  of 
soothsayers  like  the  Philistines,  but  also  of  silver  and  golden 
images  (2  :  8,  18).  The  impotence  of  these  alleged  divini- 
ties was  clear  to  him,  for  he  predicts  that  they  will  be  cast 
to  the  moles  and  the  bats.  It  is  he,  perhaps,  who  first  stig- 
matised the  idols  as  nothings  (elilim).  He  declared  further 
that  the  people  would  be  ashamed  of  the  oaks  which  they 
had  loved  and  the  gardens  in  which  they  had  delighted 
(1  :  29).  The  impotence  of  the  idols  must  have  been  made 
evident  in  connection  with  the  fall  of  the  northern  king- 
dom, when  the  golden  bulls  fell  into  the  hand  of  the  As- 
syrians, and  also  at  the  invasion  of  Sennacherib  when  the 
country  sanctuaries  were  plundered  by  the  invader.  All 
this  tended  to  increase  the  prestige  of  the  temple  and  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  those  who  desired  an  imageless  wor- 
ship. 

Reviewing  what  can  be  known  of  the  life  of  Isaiah,  it 
does  not  seem  hard  to  account  for  the  influence  which  he 
exerted — first  on  his  own  generation,  more  distinctly  on  those 
that  followed.  He  alone  among  the  prophets  of  Judah 
seems  to  have  correctly  forecast  the  failure  of  Pekah  and 
Rezon,  then  the  fall  of  Samaria,  next  the  futility  of  the 
Egyptian  alliance,  and,  finally,  the  preservation  of  Jerusalem 
from  sack  and  siege.  But  this  influence  could  hardly  have 
been  his  unless  he  had  been  a  thoroughly  religious  man.  In 
fact,  all  his  utterances  impress  us  as  those  of  a  man  thor- 
oughly honest,  thoroughly  courageous,  and  thoroughly  de- 
voted to  the  God  of  Israel.  The  fact  that  the  majority  was 


ISAIAH  161 

against  him  made  no  difference  in  the  persistency  with  which 
he  uttered  the  truth  as  he  saw  it.  He  tells  us  that  Yahweh 
warned  him  not  to  be  moved  by  popular  clamour  even  when 
it  based  itself  on  religious  beliefs:  "Call  not  that  sacred 
which  this  people  call  sacred;  neither  fear  what  they  fear 
nor  be  terrified  at  it!  Call  Yahweh  of  Hosts  sacred  and  let 
him  alone  be  your  fear  and  your  object  of  reverence." l  What 
made  Isaiah  a  religious  leader  was  the  firmness  with  which 
he  held  on  to  this  trust  in  Yahweh  alone.  The  scoffing  of 
priests  and  prophets  was  finally  put  to  shame  by  his  fidelity. 
On  account  of  the  overlaying  of  Isaiah's  words  with  later 
material  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  his  hope  in  the  rem- 
nant ever  assumed  what  we  may  call  Messianic  form.  Sev- 
eral chapters  contained  in  his  book  give  very  definite  ex- 
pression to  this  hope,  but  the  most  of  these  are  now  conceded 
to  be  of  later  date.  They  are  insertions  of  an  exilic  writer 
who  could  not  bear  to  leave  the  uncompromising  threats  of 
the  prophet  unmodified  by  more  hopeful  expressions.  The 
phenomenon  is  the  same  that  we  have  met  in  the  editing  of 
Amos  and  Hosea.  It  is  possible  that  the  thought  of  a  rem- 
nant involved  the  continuance  of  the  Davidic  dynasty  and 
the  reign  of  an  ideal  king.  The  coming  judgment  would 
purify  the  people  (1  :  25),  and  the  city  would  remain  as  a 
citadel  of  righteousness  for  all  time,  perhaps  with  a  right- 
eous ruler  at  its  head.  But  we  cannot  get  beyond  the  "  per- 
haps" with  reference  to  all  this.  It  is  not  accidental,  appar- 
ently, that  Isaiah  promises  that  the  judges  shall  be  restored 
as  at  the  first  and  makes  no  mention  of  the  king.  On  the 
basis  of  such  silence  we  should  conclude  that  the  monarch, 
even  of  David's  line,  played  no  part  in  whatever  picture  the 
prophet  made  of  the  commonwealth  of  the  future.  A  rudi- 
mentary expectation  is  all  that  we  can  with  confidence  at- 
tribute to  him. 

1  The  received  text  of  the  passage  (8  ;  12)  is  unintelligible  and  the 
emendation  obvious. 


CHAPTER  IX 
JEREMIAH 

SINCE  religion  is  a  personal  experience,  the  progress  of 
Israel's  religion  is  reflected  in  a  series  of  personalities  whose 
words  have  been  preserved  for  us.  The  biographical  form 
of  our  study  is  therefore  inevitable.  As  we  have  taken  up 
in  succession  Amos,  Hosea,  Micah,  and  Isaiah,  so  now  we 
must  endeavour  to  understand  Jeremiah,  in  some  respects  the 
most  interesting  of  all.  There  might  indeed  be  a  question 
whether  he  should  be  studied  before  we  consider  Deuteronomy. 
The  most  important  event  of  the  seventh  century  B.  C.  was 
the  reform  of  Josiah,  based  on  the  book  found  in  the  temple, 
and  this  book  was  found  early  in  the  active  life  of  Jeremiah. 
Chronologically,  it  would  seem  that  Deuteronomy  should  be 
studied  before  Jeremiah.  But  against  this  is  the  considera- 
tion that  Jeremiah  belongs  in  the  succession  of  which  Amos 
was  the  first  member,  and  that  in  a  sense  he  completed  that 
line.  Deuteronomy  introduced  a  new  element  into  the  relig- 
ion of  Israel,  an  element  with  which  Jeremiah  had  little  or 
no  sympathy.  It  is  best  therefore  to  let  him  complete  the 
series  of  prophets  of  the  old  school,  reserving  Deuteronomy 
to  open  a  new  division  of  the  subject. 

Whatever  reforms  were  introduced  into  the  worship  at 
Jerusalem  by  Hezekiah  were  largely  undone  in  the  reign 
of  Manasseh.  This  king,  we  are  told,  "built  again  the 
high  places  which  his  father  had  destroyed,  reared  again 
altars  for  Baal,  made  an  Ashera  as  had  Ahab,  king  of  Israel, 
and  worshipped  all  the  host  of  heaven  and  served  them. 
He  built  altars  for  all  the  host  of  heaven  in  the  two  courts  of 
the  temple,  and  made  his  son  pass  through  the  fire,  and 

162 


JEREMIAH  163 

practised  augury  and  used  enchantments,  and  dealt  with 
them  that  had  familiar  spirits  and  with  wizards.  .  .  .  More- 
over he  shed  innocent  blood  very  much  till  he  had  filled 
Jerusalem  from  one  end  to  another"  (II  Kings  21  :  3-6). 
It  was  the  traditional  religion  revenging  itself  on  innovators, 
coupled  probably  with  Assyrian  influence,  which  prompted 
this  violent  reaction.  Jeremiah  confirms  what  is  said  about 
the  shedding  of  innocent  blood,  and  we  must  suppose  that 
the  prophetic  party,  the  one  founded  by  Isaiah,  was  the  ob- 
ject of  active  persecution.  Religion  was  an  affair  of  the 
state,  and  opposition  to  the  king's  religious  measures  would 
be  punished  as  treason.  The  persecution  seems  to  have  been 
active  enough  to  repress  the  public  appearance  of  prophets 
of  the  reforming  school,  and  this  accounts  for  the  fact  that 
none  of  the  fragments  which  have  come  down  to  us  can  be 
dated  in  the  reign  of  Manasseh. 

Clear  light  falls  upon  the  history  of  Judah  only  with  the 
call  of  Jeremiah.  The  occasion  of  this  call  seems  to  have 
been  an  irruption  of  northern  barbarians  into  the  cultivated 
country,  such  a  migration  as  afterward  overran  and  terri- 
fied the  Roman  world.  The  invading  army  at  this  time  con- 
sisted of  the  people  known  as  Scythians.  From  sources  ex- 
ternal to  Israel  we  learn  that  this  people  wrought  wide-spread 
desolation  in  the  Assyrian  empire,  and  that  indirectly  they 
were  the  cause  of  that  empire's  fall.  To  Jeremiah  and  his 
fellow  prophets  they  appeared  to  be  the  instruments  of 
Yahweh's  wrath,  as  did  the  Assyrian  armies  to  Amos  and 
Isaiah.  The  activity  of  the  prophets  at  such  crises  has  been 
likened  to  the  appearance  of  birds  of  ill  omen  in  advance  of 
the  storm.  One  of  them,  Zephaniah,  was  a  contemporary  of 
Jeremiah.  His  book  repeats  the  threats  with  which  his  pred- 
ecessors have  made  us  familiar:  Yahweh  is  about  to  des- 
troy the  nations,  Judah  being  one  of  the  first  to  feel  his 
vengeance.  The  name  of  Baal  is  to  be  blotted  out  from  the 
idolatrous  city.  Those  who  worship  the  host  of  heaven  on 
the  housetops  are  singled  out  for  punishment,  along  with 
those  who  swear  by  Moloch,  those  who  leap  over  the  thresh- 


164  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

old  of  the  sanctuary,1  and  those  who  wear  garments  of  for- 
eign fashion  (Zeph.  1  :  4-9).  We  may  suppose  these  to  be 
devotees  of  outlandish  deities  who  made  their  religion  known 
by  their  dress.  The  sceptics,  the  men  who  are  settled  on 
their  lees,  and  who  say  that  Yahweh  will  not  do  anything 
either  good  or  evil,  come  in  for  their  share  of  denunciation 
(1  :  12).  The  approaching  calamity  is  identified  with  the 
great  day  of  which  the  earlier  prophets  had  spoken,  a  day 
of  wrath  and  trouble  and  distress,  of  waste  and  desolation, 
of  clouds  and  thick  darkness.  It  will  execute  judgment  on 
Jerusalem,  but  it  will  also  bring  vengeance  on  Assyria.  In 
this  we  find  little  variation  from  what  we  have  already  read 
in  Isaiah. 

Jeremiah,  the  main  subject  of  this  chapter,  shows  himself 
as  a  man  of  very  different  disposition  from  Isaiah.  He  was 
naturally  timid  and  received  his  mission  with  fear  and 
trembling.  Moreover,  in  his  day  things  were  distinctly 
going  from  bad  to  worse;  the  times  were  out  of  joint,  and  he 
saw  his  impotence  to  set  them  right.  Deeply  attached  to  his 
country,  he  suffered  as  every  patriot  must  suffer  when  woes 
come  upon  his  fatherland.  Compelled  to  announce  the  com- 
ing calamity,  he  was  misunderstood,  taken  to  be  a  traitor, 
arrested,  humiliated,  and  plotted  against.  His  mission  for- 
bade him  to  marry  and  enjoy  the  comforts  of  home,  so  that 
he  presented  in  his  own  person  the  fate  of  his  people,  whose 
God  had  left  them  to  themselves.  Yet  it  would  be  wrong 
to  think  of  him  as  essentially  weak.  Much  as  he  shrank 
from  the  work  laid  upon  him  and  from  the  suffering  it  en- 
tailed, yet  he  was  steadfast  to  the  end.  His  confidence  in 
his  God  made  him  like  a  wall  of  iron  or  a  pillar  of  bronze, 
able  to  withstand  the  shocks  and  storms  of  time. 

Like  the  other  prophets,  Jeremiah  was  conscious  of  a  dis- 
tinct crisis  in  his  life  when  his  mission  was  made  clear  to  him. 
In  a  vision  he  saw  Yahweh  in  human  form,  who  told  him  that 

1  Leaping  over  the  threshold  is  a  custom  found  in  various  religions, 
and  distinctly  attributed  to  the  Philistines  by  the  Old  Testament 
itself  (I  Sam.  5:5). 


JEREMIAH  165 

he  had  been  set  apart  (consecrated)  to  his  work  even  before 
birth.  The  nature  of  the  work  was  indicated  by  the  divinity's 
touching  his  mouth  as  though  putting  his  words  into  it. 
Henceforth  Jeremiah  regarded  himself  as  dedicated  to  the 
work  of  heralding  God's  will.  His  personal  experiences  and 
actions  revealed  that  will.  The  girdle  which  he  hid  in  a  rock 
and  which  was  spoiled  by  the  damp  and  the  dirt  showed 
him  the  corruption  of  Judah;  the  yoke  that  he  made  and 
wore  typified  the  coming  subjection  of  his  country  to  the 
king  of  Babylon;  the  potter's  vessel  which  he  dashed  to 
pieces  was  an  object-lesson  for  those  who  doubted  the 
complete  rejection  of  Jerusalem.  In  all  this  he  was  in  line 
with  the  earlier  prophets,  to  whom  also  life  was  dominated 
by  their  mission.1 

We  have  already  found  occasion  to  suppose  that  renewed 
prophetic  activity  came  with  the  Scythian  inroads.  It  is 
probably  not  a  mere  coincidence  that  Jeremiah's  preaching 
began  at  the  time  when  this  fierce  people  appeared  on  the 
horizon  of  Palestine.  He  saw  in  them  the  destined  instru- 
ments of  Yahweh's  vengeance — not  upon  Assyria,  but  upon 
Judah.  The  approach  of  this  dreaded  foe  spelled  ruin  for 
his  people,  and  Jeremiah's  description  is  one  of  the  most 
vivid  that  we  have  in  the  Old  Testament:  "Declare  in 
Judah,  and  publish  in  Jerusalem,  and  say :  '  Blow  the  trumpet 
in  the  land,  cry  aloud;  assemble  yourselves  and  go  up  to  the 
fortified  cities;  set  up  a  standard  toward  Zion;  flee  for  safety, 
stay  not!  For  I  will  bring  evil  from  the  north  and  a  great 
destruction.  A  lion  is  gone  up  from  his  thicket,  and  a  de- 
stroyer of  nations;  he  is  on  his  way  to  make  thy  land  deso- 
late, that  thy  cities  be  laid  waste  without  inhabitant.'  For 
this  gird  you  with  sackcloth,  lament  and  wail;  for  the  fierce 
anger  of  Yahweh  is  not  turned  from  us.  It  shall  come  to 
pass  in  that  day,  says  Yahweh,  that  the  heart  of  the  king 
shall  perish,  and  the  heart  of  the  princes,  and  the  priests 
shall  be  astonished  and  the  prophets  shall  wonder"  (4  :  5-9). 
The  whole  chapter  should  be  read,  not  only  to  get  a  picture 
1  Cf.  chapters  13,  19,  and  27. 


166  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

of  the  invader,  but  to  realise  the  intense  sympathy  which  the 
prophet  felt  for  his  people.  This  sympathy  leads  him  to 
cry  out:  "Ah,  Lord  Yahweh,  thou  hast  surely  deceived  this 
people,  saying:  'You  shall  have  peace/  whereas  the  sword 
has  reached  the  seat  of  life."  He  alludes,  no  doubt,  to  the 
word  of  some  opposition  prophet  which  assured  the  people 
that  all  was  well.  The  genuineness  of  Jeremiah's  grief  is 
attested  again  a  little  later.  It  seems  as  if  the  vision  of 
desolation  haunts  him  continually:  "My  pain!  My  pain! 
I  suffer  at  my  very  heart.  I  cannot  hold  my  peace,  for  I 
hear  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  the  shout  of  war.  Destruc- 
tion on  destruction  is  cried  out,  the  whole  land  is  laid  waste" 
(4  :  19/.).  And  again  in  another  passage:  "For  the  hurt 
of  the  daughter  of  my  people  am  I  hurt;  I  mourn,  dismay  has 
taken  hold  of  me.  Is  there  no  balm  in  Gilead,  and  no 
physician  there?  Why  then  is  not  the  hurt  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people  recovered?  Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and 
my  eyes  fountains  of  tears,  that  I  might  weep  day  and  night 
for  the  daughter  of  my  people!  Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilder- 
ness a  lodging  for  wayfaring  men,  that  I  might  leave  my 
people  and  go  from  them,  for  they  are  all  adulterers,  a  band 
of  treacherous  men"  (8:21  and  9:2).  The  phrase  "daughter 
of  my  people,"  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say,  is  the  poetical 
or  rhetorical  personification  of  the  people  itself.  The  Old 
Testament  writers  like  to  think  of  the  people  of  a  land  as  the 
daughter  of  the  land.  The  comely  and  delicately  nurtured 
daughter  of  Zion  (6  :  2),  for  example,  means  the  people  of 
Jerusalem. 

We  can  hardly  wonder  that  Jeremiah's  pessimistic  mes- 
sage made  him  enemies,  but  we  can  understand  that  the  soli- 
tary man  found  a  peculiar  bitterness  in  his  lot  in  that  those 
most  nearly  attached  to  him  by  ties  of  blood  were  alienated 
by  his  preaching,  and  went  so  far  as  to  plot  against  his  life. 
In  the  East,  one's  kinsmen  ought  to  stand  by  him  even 
if  the  community  persecutes  him.  The  sensitive  Jeremiah, 
deprived  of  sympathy  where  he  had  the  most  right  to  look 
for  it,  broke  out  into  imprecations  on  his  own  birth,  prayed 


JEREMIAH  167 

for  vengeance  on  his  enemies,  and  even  reproached  his  God 
for  bringing  him  into  this  unbearable  situation.  His  faith 
indeed  triumphed  over  these  moments  of  weakness,  and  he 
took  up  his  burden  again,  strengthened  by  the  assurance 
that  he  would  be  sustained  if  he  should  persist,  but  with  no 
definite  promise  beyond  that.1 

It  is  this  very  crisis  of  his  faith  which  makes  Jeremiah  so 
instructive  for  the  history  of  religion.  His  patriotism  was 
in  conflict  with  his  conviction  of  God's  will.  The  earlier 
prophets  seem  to  have  comforted  themselves  with  the  thought 
that  as  messengers  of  Yahweh  they  would  be  exempt  from 
the  fate  which  impended  over  the  nation;  but  Jeremiah  was 
so  thoroughly  one  with  his  people  that  he  felt  himself  smitten 
by  every  blow  that  fell  upon  them.  The  inner  disharmony 
drove  him  to  appeal  to  Yahweh  himself,  and  thus  the  thought 
of  his  personal  relation  to  his  God  came  to  more  distinct 
consciousness.  What  most  impresses  us  as  we  followrhis 
career  is  that  he  lived  the  life  of  prayer.  On  this  account, 
Jeremiah  has  been  called,  not  without  reason  the  discoverer 
of  individualism  in  religion.  One  of  the  best  expressions 
of  his  sympathy  with  his  people  is  found  in  his  discourse  on 
the  famine  (chapter  14).  Here  he  describes  in  affecting  terms 
the  distress  which  afflicts  not  only  men  but  animals.  The 
prophet  expostulates  with  Yahweh  as  though  he,  by  giving 
his  own  land  over  to  desolation,  shows  himself  unable  to  save 
it.  The  protest  is  made  more  vivid  because  other  prophets 
have  promised  welfare.  The  reply  is  that  the  prophets  have 
promised  lies,  that  they  are  not  sent  by  Yahweh  but  proclaim 
only  the  imaginations  of  their  own  brains.  Further  expostu- 
lation brings  only  the  stern  command  not  to  intercede- 
though  Moses  and  Samuel,  the  most  influential  intercessors 
of  past  times,  were  to  appear  on  behalf  of  their  people  they 
would  accomplish  nothing  (15  :  1). 

It  was  doubtless  a  cause  of  perplexity  to  the  hearers  of 
such  discourses  that  they  were  uttered  after  a  sincere  at- 

1  Notice  15:  10-12,  and  in  connection  with  it  11:  18/.;  17:  14; 
18:  18;  and  20:  14-18. 


168  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

tempt  had  been  made  to  meet  the  demands  of  Israel's  God. 
For  it  was  in  Jeremiah's  early  period  that  the  book  of  Deu- 
teronomy had  produced  such  a  revival  of  religious  feeling 
and  such  sweeping  measures  of  reform.  The  attitude  of 
Jeremiah  with  reference  to  this  reform  was  distinctly  one  of 
reserve.  He,  indeed,  accepted  the  idea  of  the  covenant,  so 
prominent  in  the  thought  of  the  Deuteronomist  though  not 
original  with  him.  He  almost  quotes  from  the  book  when 
he  says:  "Cursed  be  the  man  who  does  not  hear  the  words 
of  this  covenant  which  I  commanded  your  fathers  in  the  day 
that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the 
iron  furnace,  saying:  'Obey  my  voice,  and  do  according  to 
all  that  I  command  you;  so  shall  you  be  my  people  and  I 
will  be  your  God'"  (11  :  1-5).  But  the  continuation  of  the 
discourse  shows  only  that  the  people  have  broken  the  cov- 
enant and  have  walked  in  the  stubbornness  of  their  own 
heart,  and  that  the  fearful  punishment  threatened  by  the 
book  must  be  inflicted.  There  is  even  some  indication  that 
the  prophet  turned  against  the  new  code  as  though  it  con- 
tributed to  a  false  security  on  the  part  of  the  people:  "How 
do  you  say:  'We  are  wise,  and  the  Instruction  of  Yahweh  is 
with  us'?  Behold  the  false  pen  of  the  scribes  has  wrought 
falsely"  (8:8).  Since  Deuteronomy  calls  itself  the  Book  of 
Instruction  we  can  hardly  avoid  suspecting  that  the  prophet 
is  here  aiming  at  that  very  book.  And  in  accord  with  this 
is  his  attitude  toward  the  ritual,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  is 
very  different  from  that  of  Deuteronomy. 

The  burden  of  guilt  which  rests  upon  the  people  has 
been  accumulated  by  transgressions  of  the  plain  demands  of 
ethics :  "  They  are  all  adulterers,  an  assembly  of  treacherous 
men;  they  bend  their  tongue  as  it  were  a  bow  for  falsehood; 
they  rule  not  in  fidelity;  they  go  from  one  crime  to  another, 
and  they  do  not  know  me,  says  Yahweh.  Take  heed  every 
one  of  his  neighbour  and  let  no  man  trust  his  brother,  for 
every  brother  deceives  and  every  friend  slanders"  (9  :  2-5). 
The  sweeping  condemnation  is  repeated  in  all  possible  varia- 
tions: "There  is  not  one  who  seeks  justice;  if  there  were  a 


JEREMIAH  169 

man  in  the  whole  city  who  spoke  truth  Yahweh  would  spare 
it,  but  the  search  for  one  is  vain"  (5:1).  We  should,  per- 
haps, make  allowance  for  a  little  rhetorical  exaggeration  here, 
for  we  know  that  there  were  some  men  who  listened  to  the 
prophet  and  protected  him  when  his  life  was  in  danger.  But 
these  were  the  exceptions  which  proved  the  rule.  The  lead- 
ers, as  always,  are  especially  to  blame.  The  common  people 
might  be  excused  on  the  ground  of  ignorance:  "I  said:  'Surely, 
these  are  the  poor,  they  are  foolish,  they  know  not  the  way 
of  Yahweh  nor  the  instruction  of  their  God.  I  will  get  me 
to  the  great  men  and  will  speak  unto  them;  for  they  know 
the  way  of  Yahweh  and  the  justice  of  their  God.'  But  these 
with  one  accord  have  broken  the  yoke  and  burst  the  bonds" 
(5  :  4/.).  A  crying  example  was  the  king,  Jehoiakim,  who 
with  almost  incredible  levity  showed  himself  insensible  to 
the  crisis  which  confronted  his  people,  and  Jeremiah  did  not 
hesitate  to  tell  the  truth:  "Woe  to  him  who  builds  his  house 
by  unrighteousness,  and  his  chambers  by  injustice;  who 
forces  his  fellow  man  to  work  without  wages,  and  does  not 
give  him  his  pay!  Art  thou  a  king  because  thou  viest  with 
Ahab  in  building?  Thy  father  ate  and  drank,  to  be  sure, 
but  he  administered  justice;  he  judged  the  cause  of  the 
oppressed  and  the  poor  and  it  went  well  with  him.  Is  not 
this  to  know  me,  says  Yahweh?  But  thy  eyes  and  thy  de- 
sire are  set  only  on  gain,  to  shed  innocent  blood,  and  to 
practise  oppression  and  extortion"  (22  :  13-17).  There  fol- 
lows a  very  definite  prediction  that  Jehoiakim  will  not  come 
to  his  grave  in  peace,  but  that  his  corpse  will  be  dragged 
ignominiously  through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  thrown 
outside  the  gate  like  that  of  an  unclean  animal. 

Nobles,  priests,  and  prophets  are  in  the  same  condemna- 
tion with  the  king.  "The  priests  do  not  say:  'Where  is 
Yahweh?'  and  those  who  handle  the  torn  do  not  know  me; 
the  shepherds  transgress  against  me,  and  the  prophets  proph- 
esy by  Baal,  and  go  after  those  who  do  not  help"  (2  :  8).  Or 
again:  "A  wonderful  and  horrible  thing  has  come  to  pass  in 
the  land;  the  prophets  prophesy  falsely  and  the  priests  are 


170  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

in  league  with  them  and  my  people  love  to  have  it  so" 
(5  :  30/.).  The  motive  is  the  same  which  made  Micah  so 
indignant:  "From  the  least  to  the  greatest  they  are  out  after 
gain;  prophets  and  priests  all  practise  lying  and  deceit" 
(6  :  13).1 

Since  Jeremiah  and  Hosea  were  men  of  similar  tempera- 
ment it  was  natural  that  the  later  preacher  should  adopt 
the  figure  of  the  adulterous  wife  used  by  the  earlier  one. 
The  opening  discourse  of  the  book  speaks  of  the  bridal  sea- 
son when  Judah  had  testified  her  love  by  following  her  hus- 
band into  the  wilderness.  The  law  of  the  first-fruits  pre- 
vailed in  her  case,  for  these  are  sacred.  So  she  had  been 
wholly  dedicated  to  her  Lord.  But  soon  she  had  turned 
away,  had  polluted  the  land  by  prostituting  herself  to  other 
gods,  had  been  worse  than  the  heathen  who  do  not  exchange 
their  gods  for  others  (2  :  10).  At  the  sanctuaries,  on  the 
hills,  and  under  the  trees  she  had  played  the  harlot  with 
a  lack  of  shame  that  revolted  even  the  most  hardened.  The 
case  was  worse  in  that  Judah  had  the  example  of  the  north- 
ern kingdom  before  her  eyes.  Judah  was,  in  fact,  the  more 
guilty  of  the  two,  and  there  was  more  hope  of  the  restitution 
of  the  older  sister  than  of  the  younger  (3  :  6-12).  The  de- 
fection was  political  as  well  as  religious;  alliances  with 
Egypt  and  Assyria  were  sought,  in  distrust  of  Yahweh,  and 
in  the  vain  hope  that  foreign  gods  would  be  better  protectors 
than  he.  The  anger  of  Yahweh  and  the  final  ruin  of  Judah 
were  sure  to  follow  (2  :  18). 

Making  all  allowances  for  the  prophet's  temperament,  we 
must  suppose  that  he  had  grounds  for  so  serious  an  indict- 
ment. After  the  enthusiastic  revival  in  Josiah's  time  a  re- 
vulsion had  followed.  The  Deuteronomic  reform  had  been 
undertaken  in  the  confidence  that  prosperity  and  peace  would 
be  thereby  assured.  This  faith  seemed  at  first  to  find  con- 
firmation in  the  arrest  of  the  Scythian  invasion,  and  in  the 
fall  of  Nineveh.  But  the  death  of  Josiah,  the  well-beloved, 
was  inexplicable  on  the  Deuteronomic  theory.  The  fall  of 

1  Read  also  the  extended  indictment  of  the  prophets  in  23  :  9-32. 


JEREMIAH  171 

Nineveh  was  found  to  be  no  deliverance,  for  it  threw  the 
country  first  into  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians  who  were  no 
more  merciful  than  the  Assyrians,  and  then  into  the  power 
of  the  Babylonians  who  were  apparently  more  ruthless. 
Hence  the  demoralisation  of  the  people,  resulting  in  reck- 
lessness or  a  frantic  appeal  to  foreign  gods.  The  moral 
levity  is  well  illustrated  by  the  release  of  the  slaves  when 
Nebuchadrezzar  invaded  the  country,  and  their  prompt 
re-enslavement  when  the  danger  seemed  to  be  past  (34  : 
8-22). 

We  have  seen  that  Assyrian  deities  were  introduced  into 
Jerusalem  by  Manasseh.  After  the  death  of  Josiah  they 
seem  to  have  reappeared,  perhaps  on  the  theory  that,  being 
worshipped  in  Babylon,  they  had  given  that  city  the  empire 
of  the  world.  Among  these  Jeremiah  names  one,  the  queen 
of  heaven,  whose  worship  was  openly  practised  in  Jeru- 
salem and  was  especially  obnoxious  to  Yahweh:  "Seest 
thou  not  what  is  done  in  the  cities  of  Judah  and  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem?  The  children  gather  wood,  and  the 
fathers  kindle  the  fire,  and  the  women  knead  the  dough  to 
make  cakes  for  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to  pour  out  liba- 
tions to  foreign  gods,  to  provoke  me  to  anger"  (7  :  17/.). 
The  rites  are  familiar  to  students  of  the  history  of  religion. 
Cakes  in  the  form  of  animals  are  substituted  for  animal 
offerings,  and  since  such  cakes  were  offered  to  the  Baby- 
lonian Ishtar  (who  was  also  an  Assyrian  divinity)  it  is  prob- 
ably she  who  is  designated  queen  of  heaven  in  this  passage.1 
The  devotion  of  the  people  to  her  worship  is  brought  to 
light  in  a  later  passage,  where  the  women  attribute  all  their 
misfortunes  to  the  temporary  interruption  of  her  worship 
(44  :  19). 

The  foreign  deities  had  been  introduced  into  the  temple 
of  Yahweh  itself.  This  was  no  new  thing.  It  had  been 
done  possibly  by  Solomon,  certainly  by  Athaliah,  by  Ahaz, 
and  by  Manasseh.  The  stricter  party  had  always  protested 
against  it,  however,  and  the  conscience  of  Jeremiah  was 

lCf.  Schrader,  Die  Keilinschriften  und  das  Alte  Testament*  p.  441. 


172  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

sensitive  to  every  violation  of  Yahweh's  exclusive  right. 
Against  rites  traditionally  connected  with  the  worship  of 
Yahweh  he  also  protested.  His  indictment  specifies  the 
high  places  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  where  children  were 
sacrificed  (7  :  31).  Since  Yahweh  protests,  "Which  I  com- 
manded not,  neither  came  it  into  my  mind,"  we  must  sup- 
pose that  the  popular  belief  regarded  such  offerings  as  some- 
thing pleasing  to  him.  Ezekiel  plainly  shows  that  this 
belief  was  prevalent  in  this  period,  and  since  child  sacrifice 
was  offered  both  by  Ahaz  and  by  Manasseh  we  must  con- 
clude, as  we  have  already  done,  that  it  was  one  of  the  ancient 
features  of  Yahweh- worship,  suppressed  by  Josiah  but  re- 
vived after  his  death. 

This  very  survival  testifies  that  the  worship  of  Yahweh 
was  not  neglected.  In  fact,  the  prophets,  all  of  them,  show 
by  their  invective  that  the  people  were  never  indifferent  to 
the  ritual.  Jeremiah,  like  the  others,  admits  the  zeal  of  the 
people,  but  like  the  others  declares  it  to  be  vain.  He  claims, 
as  Amos  had  claimed,  that  sacrifice  and  offerings  had  not 
been  brought  in  the  wilderness  wandering,  when,  neverthe- 
less, the  relations  of  Yahweh  and  his  people  had  been  of  the 
best.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  in  the  teeth  of  Deuteron- 
omy that  these  had  not  been  commanded  by  Yahweh: 
"Thus  says  Yahweh,  God  of  Israel:  'Add  your  burnt-offer- 
ings to  your  other  sacrifices  and  eat  flesh;  for  I  spoke  not 
to  your  fathers  nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  concerning  burnt- 
offerings  and  sacrifices;  but  this  thing  I  commanded  them: 
Hearken  to  my  voice,  and  I  will  be  your  God  and  you  shall 
be  my  people;  and  walk  in  all  the  way  that  I  command  you, 
and  it  shall  be  well  with  you'"  (7  : 21-23).  The  difficulty 
the  passage  presents  to  those  who  still  hold  that  a  ritual  law 
was  given  by  Moses  must  be  evident.  For  our  present  pur- 
pose it  is  enough  to  note  that  Jeremiah  denied  that  any  such 
law  had  been  given.  He  held  that  Yahweh  commanded 
the  people  to  walk  in  the  way  pointed  out  by  the  prophets, 
and  that  the  prophets  concerned  themselves  with  ethics  and 


JEREMIAH  173 

not  with  ritual.  If  the  contemporaries  pointed  with  pride 
to  the  enrichment  of  the  temple  service  by  new  rites,  such 
as  the  burning  of  costly  perfumes,  the  prophet  was  ready  to 
disabuse  them:  "To  what  purpose  does  there  come  to  me 
frankincense  from  Sheba,  and  sweet  cane  from  a  far  coun- 
try? Your  burnt-offerings  are  not  acceptable  nor  your 
sacrifices  pleasing  to  me"  (6  :  20).  In  another  place  he 
asks  indignantly:  "Shall  vows  and  sacred  flesh  take  away 
thy  wickedness?  Or  shalt  thou  escape  by  these?"  1 

It  was  pointed  out  in  the  last  chapter  that  a  strong  con- 
fidence in  the  inviolability  of  the  temple  had  arisen  as  the 
result  of  events  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah.  Jeremiah  does 
not  hesitate  to  denounce  such  confidence:  "Trust  not  in 
lying  words,  saying:  'The  temple  of  Yahweh,  the  temple  of 
Yahweh,  the  temple  of  Yahweh  is  this!'  .  .  .  Behold  you 
trust  in  lying  words  that  cannot  profit.  You  steal,  murder, 
commit  adultery  and  swear  falsely  and  burn  incense  to 
Baal  and  walk  after  other  gods  whom  you  have  not  known, 
and  then  you  come  and  stand  before  me  in  this  house  and 
say:  We  are  delivered  to  do  all  these  abominations!  Is 
this  house  which  is  called  by  my  name  a  den  of  robbers  in 
your  eyes?  Behold  I  have  seen  it,  says  Yahweh"  (7  :  4-11). 
The  sequel  cites  the  case  of  Shiloh,  where  there  had  once 
been  a  famous  sanctuary,  and  where  now  only  ruins  were  to 
be  seen,  a  proof  that  Yahweh  would  not  hesitate  to  destroy 
his  own  dwelling.  This  was  answer  enough  to  those  who 
were  under  the  delusion  that,  because  Yahweh  had  taken 
up  his  residence  in  the  temple,  he  was  therefore  obliged  to 
protect  it,  no  matter  what  his  worshippers  might  be  or  do. 
To  protect  them  in  their  evil  courses  would  be  to  make  him 
an  accomplice  of  their  crimes. 

With  reference  to  this  whole  set  of  beliefs  that  Yahweh 
had  bound  himself  irrevocably  to  Israel  or  to  the  temple, 
Jeremiah  energetically  protested  that  the  God  of  Israel  has 
liberty.  This  is  the  lesson  of  the  potter,  a  lesson  which  has 

1  The  original  reading  here  adopted  has  been  preserved  by  the  Greek 
translator  (11  :  15). 


174  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

been  frequently  misunderstood.  As  Jeremiah  watched  the 
potter  he  saw  that,  when  the  vessel  he  was  shaping  did  not 
please  him,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  crush  it  together  and 
begin  over  again.  Was  it  not  clear  that  if  Yahweh  did  not 
find  his  people  to  his  mind  he  could  with  the  same  sovereign 
freedom  crush  them  out  of  existence  and  begin  a  new  work? 
They,  on  their  part,  hugged  the  delusion  that  in  some  way 
he  had  committed  himself  to  them  and  could  not  give  them 
up.  Yet  this  delusion  he  had  tried  to  nullify  by  the  word 
of  the  prophets,  diligently  preached  (7  :  13,  25).  He  had 
hoped  that  they  would  repent,  would  cease  to  sow  among 
thorns,  and  would  break  up  the  new  ground.  But  now 
there  seemed  no  more  chance  of  this:  "If  a  man  put  away 
his  wife  and  she  become  another's,  shall  he  return  to  her 
again?  Would  not  that  woman  be  too  thoroughly  pol- 
luted? And  thou  who  hast  played  the  harlot  with  many 
lovers,  wilt  thou  return  to  me?  says  Yahweh."  The  ques- 
tion evidently  calls  for  a  negative  answer.1  The  sinful 
habit  has  become  so  ingrained  that  it  cannot  be  given 
up. 

This  conception  of  sin  as  a  habit,  something  ingrained,  is 
first  distinctly  brought  out  by  Jeremiah.  He  had  of  course 
no  thought  of  an  original  taint  introduced  by  the  trans- 
gression of  Adam.  But  he  saw  his  contemporaries  so  en- 
slaved by  evil  that  there  was  a  real  moral  inability  to  turn  to 
righteousness.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  his  frequent  exhorta- 
tions to  circumcise  the  foreskin  of  the  heart,  the  prophet 
had  no  confidence  that  his  preaching  would  be  effective: 
"To  whom  shall  I  speak  and  testify  that  they  may  hear? 
Behold  their  ear  is  uncircumcised,  and  they  cannot  hearken; 
the  word  of  Yahweh  is  to  them  a  reproach,  they  have  no  de- 
light in  it"  (6  :  10;  cf.  4  :  4).  The  prophet  pictures  himself 
as  a  refiner  of  silver,  but  one  who  works  in  vain  because 

1  The  Greek  text  seems  again  to  be  original.  Hebrew  custom  seema 
to  have  regarded  a  divorced  woman  who  had  entered  a  second  mar- 
riage and  been  again  divorced  as  still  taboo  to  her  first  husband  (Jer. 
3:1;  cf.  Deut.  24  :  4). 


JEREMIAH  175 

the  ore  he  uses  contains  only  baser  metal.  "The  bellows 
blow  fiercely;  the  lead  is  consumed  of  the  fire;  in  vain  does 
he  go  on  refining,  for  the  dross  is  not  taken  away;  refuse 
silver  shall  men  call  them  because  Yahweh  has  rejected 
them"  (6:29).  Even  more  emphatic  to  those  who  first 
heard  it  must  have  been  the  text  which  has  to  us  lost  some- 
thing of  its  force  by  repetition:  "Can  the  Ethiopian  change 
his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots?  Then  may  you  do  good 
who  are  habituated  to  evil"  (13  :  23).  The  fact  that  habit 
fastens  the  chains  of  evil  so  that  its  victims  find  it  morally 
impossible  to  reverse  their  steps  is  nowhere  more  forcibly 
expressed.  Again  we  hear  Yahweh  asking:  "Why  has  this 
people  turned  away  in  a  perpetual  backsliding?  They  hold 
fast  to  deceit  and  refuse  to  repent.  They  should  be  ashamed 
that  they  have  committed  abomination,  only  they  cannot 
blush  any  more,  neither  do  they  know  how  to  be  ashamed" 
(8  :5,  12).  We  are  reminded  of  Lessing:  "Blush  at  least, 
Lucinda,  that  you  have  lost  the  power  of  blushing!"  In 
Jeremiah's  view  the  girdle  soiled  by  damp  and  mildew  was 
the  fit  symbol  of  Judah  in  its  corruption. 

Jeremiah's  theology  was  the  simple  faith  in  Yahweh  held 
by  the  other  prophets.  Yahweh  is  a  God  of  righteousness, 
and  he  requires  righteousness  in  man.  He  is  the  living 
God,  and  the  others  do  not  profit  (2  :  8).  The  perversity 
of  the  people  is  seen  in  their  turning  from  him  in  prosperity, 
but  in  distress  calling  upon  him  to  save  them.  The  other 
gods  are  like  broken  cisterns,  which  hold  no  water;  he  is  the 
fountain  of  living  water  which  never  fails.  "What  evil  did 
your  fathers  find  in  me  that  they  forsook  me  and  went  after 
vanity?"  (2  :  5.)  Whether  this  word  vanity  indicates  the 
non-existence  of  the  other  divinities  is  not  clear.  For 
Israel  there  is  only  one  Helper;  that  is,  Yahweh.  And  that 
Yahweh  has  power  over  the  other  nations  is  assumed,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  other  prophets.  The  prophet  even  sees 
himself  commissioned  to  give  the  cup  of  Yahweh's  wrath  to 
Judah's  neighbours  as  well  as  to  herself  (25  :  15-29). 

From  Yahweh's  power  and  justice  on  one  hand,  and  the 


176  THE   RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

ingrained  sinfulness  of  Israel  on  the  other,  follows  logically 
the  certainty  that  punishment  must  come.  Like  the  north- 
ern kingdom,  Judah  is  to  be  banished  from  Yahweh's  pres- 
ence (7  :  15).  The  completeness  of  the  destruction  is  sym- 
bolised by  the  earthen  pot  dashed  to  pieces  before  the  eyes 
of  the  people  (19  :  10/.).  Yet  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  the  people  will  repent.  The  prophet  put  his  discourses 
in  written  form,  thinking  that  if  a  compendium  of  his  vari- 
ous messages  could  be  read  to  the  multitude  they  would 
bethink  themselves  (36  :  3).  But  an  occasional  gleam  of 
hope  like  this  makes  the  prevailing  gloom  only  the  more 
visible.  At  the  very  beginning  of  his  mission  the  preacher 
was  obsessed  by  the  vision  of  complete  ruin:  "I  beheld  the 
earth  and  it  was  a  chaos,  and  the  heavens  had  no  light; 
I  beheld  the  mountains  and  they  trembled,  and  all  the  hills 
moved  to  and  fro;  I  beheld,  and  lo  there  was  no  man,  and 
all  the  birds  of  heaven  were  fled;  I  beheld,  and  lo  the  fruit- 
ful field  was  become  a  wilderness,  and  all  the  cities  were 
broken  down  before  Yahweh,  before  the  fierceness  of  his 
wrath"  (4  : 24/.).  The  concrete  details  must  leave  no 
doubt  in  the  hearers'  minds:  "The  corpses  of  this  people 
shall  be  food  for  the  birds  of  heaven  and  for  the  wild  beasts, 
and  no  one  shall  scare  them  away.  I  will  cause  joy  and 
gladness,  the  joy  of  the  bridegroom  and  the  joy  of  the  bride, 
to  cease  from  the  cities  of  Judah  and  from  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem,  for  the  land  shall  become  a  desert.  In  that  day, 
says  Yahweh,  they  shall  bring  out  the  bones  of  the  kings  of 
Judah  and  the  bones  of  her  princes,  and  the  bones  of  the 
prophets,  the  bones  of  the  priests,  and  the  bones  of  the 
dwellers  in  Jerusalem  out  of  their  tombs  and  spread  them 
out  before  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  host  of  heaven" 
(7:33  and  8:1).  No  more  fearful  threat  could  be  uttered 
to  men  who  believed  that  the  soul  finds  rest  only  when  the 
body  has  been  properly  buried.1 

1  Outrage  of  the  tombs  was  one  of  the  ways  by  which  the  Assyrian 
kings  sought  to  strike  terror  into  their  enemies,  as  is  shown  by  the 
boast  of  Ashurbanipal,  Keilinschriftliche  Bibliothek,  II,  p.  193. 


JEREMIAH  177 

What  would  follow  after  the  blow  had  actually  fallen? 
This  question  finds  no  direct  answer  in  the  genuine  words 
of  Jeremiah.  The  passages  which  promise  restoration  are 
not  from  the  hand  of  the  prophet,  but  are  inserted  by  later 
editors  in  the  manner  already  familiar  to  us.  One  intima- 
tion that  Jeremiah  had  some  hope  that  a  remnant  would 
be  spared  is  given,  however,  in  his  attitude  toward  the  first 
group  of  exiles — the  men  carried  away  in  597.  Those  who 
were  spared  in  this  visitation  and  who  remained  in  Jerusa- 
lem seem  to  have  plumed  themselves  on  the  thought  that 
they  were  the  righteous  remnant,  and  that  the  exiles  were 
the  wicked  who  had  been  punished.  Jeremiah  looks  at  the 
matter  in  another  light.  To  him  the  good  figs  of  his  vision 
typify  the  exiles.  Yahweh  will  set  his  eyes  on  them  for 
good  (chapter  24).  To  the  same  effect  is  the  letter  which 
the  prophet  sent  to  these  same  exiles  (29),  designed  to  keep 
them  from  false  hopes  of  an  early  return.  The  prediction 
that  the  exile  would  last  seventy  years  was,  however,  in- 
tended not  so  much  to  set  a  time  for  the  return  as  to 
wean  the  exiles  from  any  hope  of  immediate  change  in 
their  lot. 

It  must  be  clear  that  the  importance  of  Jeremiah  in  the 
religion  of  Israel  arises  not  so  much  from  any  definite  doc- 
trine promulgated  by  him  as  from  the  example  he  gave  of 
a  man  true  to  his  convictions  throughout  a  lifetime  of  trial 
and  opposition.  The  steadfastness  of  the  man  excites  our 
admiration  even  at  this  distant  day.  During  his  life  his 
people  were  blind  to  it,  but  after  his  death,  when  the  ful- 
filment of  his  predictions  called  attention  forcibly  not  only 
to  his  message  but  also  to  his  character,  the  conviction  that 
he  had  indeed  been  in  the  counsel  of  the  Almighty  came 
with  overwhelming  force.  The  result  was  to  cause  his  mem- 
ory to  be  cherished,  his  message  to  be  studied,  and  to  some 
extent  his  example  to  be  followed.  True  religion  was  here 
set  forth  in  an  object-lesson  which  none  could  misunder- 
stand. Religion  was  seen  to  be  a  matter  of  the  individual 
heart  in  communion  with  its  God.  When  the  nation  per- 


178  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

ished  this  religion  still  found  its  dwelling-place  in  the  heart 
of^  the  humble  and  contrite.  In  teaching  this  lesson,  Jere- 
miah takes  one  of  the  leading  places  in  the  history  of  human 
thought. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM 

WITH  Jeremiah  the  old  school  of  prophets  came  to  an 
end.  By  the  time  he  had  completed  the  first  five  years  of 
his  ministry,  a  new  force  had  appeared  in  the  intellectual  and 
religious  life  of  Israel,  something  which  was  to  supersede 
the  prophets  as  organs  of  the  divine  will.  This  new  force 
was  a  book,  and  the  account  of  its  discovery  and  effect  is  one 
of  the  most  dramatic  that  we  have  in  all  Hebrew  literature. 
It  was  in  the  reign  of  Josiah,  when  the  royal  officers  were 
taking  account  of  the  money  in  the  temple  chest  in  order 
to  apply  it  to  the  repair  of  the  building,  that  the  priest,  Hil- 
kiah,  informed  them,  casually,  it  would  seem,  that  he  had 
found  a  book,  which  he  called  the  book  of  Yahweh's  Instruc- 
tion. It  has  been  pointed  out  recently  that  this  is  parallel 
to  a  story  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  according  to  which 
a  certain  king,  when  about  to  rebuild  a  temple,  found  a 
plan  of  the  original  temple  in  the  old  foundation  wall  and 
by  it  was  guided  in  his  erection  or  restoration.  There  is 
also  a  statement  in  one  of  the  chapters  of  the  Book  of  the 
Dead  to  the  effect  that  this  chapter  was  found  under  the 
feet  of  one  of  the  statues  when  the  prime  minister  was  on  a 
tour  of  inspection  of  the  temple.  Other  parallels  are  cited 
both  from  Egyptian  and  from  Babylonian  sources,  so  that 
we  might  suspect  the  story  to  be  simply  one  of  the  floating 
anecdotes  which  are  current  in  different  regions.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  may  all  testify  to  the  custom  of  depositing 
books  of  importance,  like  other  valuable  objects,  in  the 
sanctuaries,  a  custom  which  may  well  have  prevailed  in  Is- 
rael from  an  early  time.  The  contents  of  the  book  thus 

179 


180  THE   RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

found,  if  we  are  right  in  identifying  it  with  Deuteronomy 
(in  the  primitive  form  of  that  book,  that  is),  give  no  indica- 
tion that  the  report  of  its  finding  in  the  temple  is  a  fiction. 

The  important  thing  is  that  the  book  had  a  marked  effect 
on  the  king  when  it  was  read  to  him  and  that  the  result 
was  a  thorough  reform  of  religious  practice  in  Judah.  The 
country  sanctuaries  were  violently  suppressed;  the  temple 
was  cleansed  of  everything  that  was  contrary  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  newly  found  document;  and  the  people,  acting 
through  their  natural  leaders,  took  a  solemn  obligation  to 
act  in  accordance  with  the  demands  there  formulated.  The 
reforms  thus  inaugurated  correspond  closely  with  the  pro- 
gramme laid  down  in  our  book  of  Deuteronomy,  and  we 
can  scarcely  doubt  that  this  book  was  the  source  of  the 
influence  exerted  on  king  and  people.  For  our  present  pur- 
pose it  is  not  necessary  to  determine  the  exact  limits  of  the 
original  book  and  of  the  various  accretions  that  have  been 
made  to  it  from  time  to  time.  The  tone  of  all  the  Deuter- 
onomic  writers  is  homogeneous,  and  their  religion  expresses 
itself  in  like  phrases  throughout. 

Why  the  programme  of  the  prophetic  party  should  be 
embodied  in  a  book  is  not  hard  to  conjecture.  We  have 
seen  that  Isaiah  gathered  a  small  group  of  disciples  to  whom 
he  committed  his  written  words  as  a  solemn  testimony. 
These  men  had  hardships  to  endure  during  the  reign  of  Ma- 
nasseh  and  found  it  impossible  to  appear  in  public.  Nothing 
would  seem  more  natural  than  that  they  should  not  only 
cherish  the  written  words  of  their  master  but  should  them- 
selves engage  in  writing  down  their  ideas  of  what  was  needed 
in  Judah.  Their  consciences  were  revolted  by  the  open  and 
flagrant  superstition  practised  and  encouraged  by  Manas- 
seh.  In  their  reflections  they  realised  the  need  of  more  defi- 
nite and  specific  regulations  than  had  been  laid  down  by 
the  earlier  prophets.  The  prophets,  to  be  sure,  had  in- 
sisted on  righteousness  as  the  supreme  requirement  of  Yah- 
weh.  But  none  of  them  had  given  more  than  a  very  gen- 
eral definition  of  what  was  meant  by  righteousness.  A  rule 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  181 

of  life  in  black  and  white,  laying  down  what  was  commanded 
and  what  was  prohibited,  would  be  a  boon  to  all  right- 
minded  men,  they  thought.  Moreover,  the  prophets  had 
been  unpractical  men  in  some  of  their  requirements.  They 
had  inveighed  against  the  traditional  worship.  But  they 
could  hardly  have  intended  to  do  away  with  all  ritual. 
Religion  is  inseparably  connected  (in  the  minds  of  men  of 
that  time  at  least)  with  external  manifestations  of  devo- 
tion. The  really  pious  heart  desires  to  approach  the  di- 
vinity with  a  gift.  It  might  well  occur,  therefore,  to  the 
members  of  the  school  that  the  position  of  their  predeces- 
sors with  reference  to  the  ritual  was  extreme. 

And  we  must  remember  how  deeply  the  ritual  was  im- 
pressed upon  popular  custom.  It  not  only  went  back  to 
immemorial  times;  it  was  sanctioned  by  the  Mosaic  tradi- 
tion as  set  forth  in  the  earliest  narratives.  To  take  away 
the  sacrifices  and  offerings,  to  abolish  the  great  festivals, 
closely  interwoven  as  they  were  with  the  life  of  the  people, 
would  be  to  deprive  men  of  what  they  dearly  prized  and 
perhaps  to  shake  their  faith  in  all  religion.  To  all  this  was 
added  the  practical  consideration  that  vested  rights  of  the 
priesthood  were  not  lightly  to  be  taken  away.  The  members 
of  this  guild  had  ancient  privilege  on  their  side.  To  do  away 
with  all  public  ceremonies  would  certainly  make  enemies  of 
this  powerful  class.  Some  of  its  members,  we  may  suppose, 
were  right-thinking  men  who  might  be  won  to  the  side  of 
reform  if  only  they  could  be  protected  in  their  prerogatives. 
The  party  of  reform  among  the  priests  may  have  been 
strengthened  by  the  reaction  under  Manasseh.  The  re- 
forms of  Hezekiah,  whatever  they  were,  gave  prestige  to  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem;  the  reaction  under  Manasseh  not  only 
revived  the  country  sanctuaries  but  introduced  foreign  gods, 
and  we  may  suppose  foreign  priests,  into  Jerusalem.  It  is 
not  a  mere  accident  that  Hilkiah,  the  priest,  is  the  one  who 
first  calls  attention  to  the  new  book — the  desire  for  a  posi- 
tive programme  had  reached  even  the  priestly  class. 

The  book  was  thus  a  compromise  between  prophetic  and 


182  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

priestly  ideals.  It  was  put  into  the  form  of  discourses  from 
the  mouth  of  Moses,  because  Moses  was  the  first  of  the 
prophets  and  also  the  first  of  the  priests.  Codes  bearing 
his  name  were  already  in  circulation  and  the  covenant  on 
which  Deuteronomy  lays  so  much  stress  was  attributed  to 
him.  The  authors  of  Deuteronomy  were,  no  doubt,  confident 
that  they  were  enforcing  the  demands  that  Moses  would 
make  were  he  living  in  their  time.  In  some  respects  they 
were  justified  in  thinking  that  their  book  was  simply  an 
enlarged  edition  of  Moses'  own  code.  Their  ethical  demands 
were  in  many  cases  based  on  traditions  which  popular  belief 
traced  to  the  great  lawgiver  himself.  The  Mosaic  colour- 
ing doubtless  helped  to  deepen  the  impression  made  by  the 
reading.  But  something  of  the  influence  of  the  book  must 
be  traced  to  the  times  in  which  it  came  to  light.  The  Scyth- 
ian invasion  was  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  people;  the  de- 
nunciations of  the  book  were  reinforced  by  the  preaching  of 
Jeremiah;  there  was  probably  a  general  feeling  that  reforma- 
tion was  needed  in  Judah.  Josiah  was  still  a  young  man,  ear- 
nestly striving  to  do  right,  impressionable,  we  may  suppose, 
and  already  under  the  influence  of  the  prophetic  party.  All 
things  considered,  we  see  how  the  book  made  its  deep  im- 
pression and  how  it  impelled  to  the  solemn  covenant  which, 
for  the  time  being,  made  it  the  supreme  law  of  the  state. 

For  the  time  being,  I  say,  for  it  is  evident  that  the  effect 
was  only  temporary.  The  drastic  nature  of  the  measures 
taken  by  Josiah  was  sure  to  provoke  a  reaction,  especially 
when  the  high  hopes  of  temporal  prosperity,  held  out  by  the 
book  as  a  reward  for  obedience,  were  disappointed;  when 
the  unexpected  and  heart-breaking  death  of  Josiah  seemed 
to  smite  the  theory  of  the  book  in  the  face;  when  the  As- 
syrian yoke  was  succeeded  by  that  of  Egypt,  and  that  again 
almost  immediately  by  that  of  Babylon.  When  the  ruthless 
Jehoiakim  came  to  the  throne,  then  the  pendulum  swung 
back  again  and  all  the  work  of  the  reformers  seemed  to  be 
undone.  Jeremiah  shows  that  the  old  heathenism  returned 
and  moral  degradation  with  it.  The  reform  itself  had  dis- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  183 

appointed  its  advocates  by  its  superficiality,  as  Jeremiah 
again  witnesses.  But  though  the  effort  seemed  to  be  with- 
out permanent  fruit,  the  more  remote  effect  was  all  that  the 
promoters  of  the  movement  could  have  anticipated.  The 
idea  of  a  book  as  the  repository  of  the  revealed  will  of  God 
became  established  and  has  been  one  of  the  most  influential 
ideas  in  the  history  of  mankind.  The  Deuteronomists  them- 
selves continued  their  activity,  and  the  Old  Testament  in  our 
hands  shows  marks  of  their  influence  in  almost  every  part. 

First  of  all  we  must  notice  that  the  Deuteronomistic  con- 
fession of  faith  has  been  cherished  by  the  Jews  through 
twenty-five  centuries.  This  confession  is  the  well-known 
Shema  which  the  loyal  Jew  repeats  every  morning  and 
evening:  "Hear,  O  Israel,  Yahweh  our  God  is  one  Yahweh; 
and  thou  shalt  love  Yahweh  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and 
with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  strength.  And  these  words 
which  I  command  thee  shall  be  in  thy  heart,  and  thou  shalt 
teach  them  to  thy  children  and  shalt  speak  of  them  when 
thou  sittest  in  the  house,  and  when  thou  walkest  in  the  way, 
when  thou  liest  down  and  when  thou  risest  up.  And  thou 
shalt  bind  them  as  signs  upon  thy  hands  and  as  frontlets 
between  thy  eyes,  and  thou  shalt  write  them  upon  the  door- 
posts of  thy  house  and  upon  thy  gates"  (Deut.  6  :  4-9). 
These  verses  may  be  said  to  be  the  text  upon  which  Deuter- 
onomy is  never  tired  of  enlarging.  Its  points  are  three: 
the  unity  of  God,  the  duty  of  loving  him,  and  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  love  by  obedience  to  the  commandments  written 
in  the  book. 

The  unity  of  God  which  is  here  affirmed  is  opposed  to  the 
popular  conception  which  looked  at  the  various  sanctuaries 
as  the  homes  of  so  many  local  divinities.  These  might  all 
be  called  by  the  name  Yahweh,  but  the  devotees  of  any  one 
of  them  did  not  think  of  him  as  more  than  the  god  of  the 
place  or  the  clan  in  which  he  was  worshipped.  The  author 
wishes  to  put  an  end  to  this  confusion  of  thought.  He  is 
not  attempting  to  state  a  speculative  monotheism;  his  fre- 
quent use  of  the  phrase  "other  gods"  would  rather  favour  the 


184  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

thought  that  he  believed  in  the  existence  of  such  others. 
He  persistently  asserts  that  Yahweh  is  the  greatest  of  all 
gods,  which  again  would  admit  that  such  gods  have  some 
reality.  The  prayer  of  Solomon,  a  thoroughly  Deutero- 
nomic  document,  addresses  Yahweh  with  the  declaration: 
"There  is  no  god  like  thee  either  in  heaven  above  or  on  the 
earth  beneath"  (I  Kings  8  :  23).  Later  readers  were  no 
doubt  able  to  construe  such  expressions  in  terms  of  an  abso- 
lute monotheism,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  writers  so 
intended  them.  Yahweh  is  One,  and  he  is  the  only  God  who 
should  receive  worship  in  Israel,  and  this  just  because  he  is 
greatest  of  all  and  most  powerful  of  all. 

Some  writers  of  this  group  attempted  to  reconcile  Yahweh's 
supremacy  with  the  fact  that  other  gods  had  such  a  powerful 
hold  on  the  minds  of  the  gentiles,  by  assuming  that  Yahweh 
himself  had  so  ordained  it.  Thus  the  author  of  the  Song  of 
Moses,  now  forming  a  part  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  says : 
"When  the  Most  High  gave  the  nations  their  portion,  when 
he  gave  the  children  of  men  their  lots,  he  set  the  bounds  of 
the  peoples  according  to  the  number  of  the  sons  of  God;  but 
Yahweh's  own  portion  is  his  people;  Jacob  is  the  lot  of  his 
inheritance."1  Here  we  see  Yahweh  as  the  supreme  ruler, 
having  under  him  the  inferior  divinities,  the  sons  of  God  as 
they  are  called  elsewhere  (Gen.  6  :  1).  Yahweh  has  himself 
arranged  that  the  nations  should  worship  these  inferior  divin- 
ities in  order  that  Israel  may  have  the  prerogative  of  devotion 
to  him.  In  another  passage  these  inferior  divinities  are  re- 
garded as  identical  with  the  sun  and  moon  and  constellations, 
which  the  author  knew  to  be  objects  of  worship  among  the 
nations  (Deut.  4  :  19). 

The  deduction  which  the  author  makes  from  his  strict 
belief  in  the  unity  of  Yahweh  is  one  strange  to  his  contem- 
poraries. This  is  that  the  one  Yahweh  has  but  one  sanc- 
tuary in  which  he  should  be  worshipped.  The  practical 
measure  which  he  has  most  at  heart  is  the  abolition  of  all 

1  Deut.  32  :  8/.  The  text  of  the  current  Hebrew  has  suffered,  and 
the  emendation  is  now  generally  accepted. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  185 

sanctuaries  outside  of  Jerusalem  and  the  concentration  of 
all  worship  at  the  capital.  The  reason  why  sacrifices  should 
be  brought  at  this  one  place  is,  of  course,  that  Yahweh  has 
his  dwelling  there.  There  is  here,  however,  some  confusion 
of  thought.  Yahweh  dwells  in  the  temple,  since  that  is  the 
place  to  seek  him;  even  the  dwellers  in  foreign  lands  should 
turn  toward  the  temple  when  they  pray.  Yet  Yahweh 
dwells  in  heaven  and  hears  them  thence.  In  the  prayer 
which  is  offered  when  the  tithe  is  brought,  the  worshipper 
says:  "Look  down  from  heaven  thy  dwelling-place  and  bless 
thy  people  Israel  and  the  land  that  thou  hast  given  us" 
(Deut.  26  :  15).  Yet  the  sacrifices  are  distinctly  declared 
to  be  brought  before  Yahweh  (14  :  23;  15  :  20).  Both  beliefs 
were  held — that  Yahweh  dwells  in  heaven,  and  that  he  dwells 
in  the  temple — with  no  consciousness  that  they  were  incon- 
sistent. Probably  the  throne  in  heaven  was  conceived  to  be 
just  above  the  temple,  and  not  very  remote  from  it.  An 
attempt  to  combine  the  two  ideas  is  made  when  it  is  said  that 
Yahweh  has  made  his  name  dwell  in  the  temple  (I  Kings 
8  :  29;  cf.  5  :  9;  9  :  3,  also  Deut.  12  :  5  and  21).  At  a  later 
time  we  read  that  heaven  is  Yahweh's  throne,  and  earth  is 
his  footstool,  which  may  be  another  attempt  to  secure  his 
presence  both  in  the  temple  and  in  the  heavenly  dwelling. 
What  the  Deuteronomist  has  most  at  heart  is  to  convince 
his  readers  that  Yahweh  is  a  God  near  at  hand,  and  not  a 
God  afar  off:  "What  nation  has  a  god  so  near  it  as  Yahweh 
our  God  is  near  us?"  (4  :  7.) 

Obedience  to  the  law  now  laid  down  is  motived  not  only 
by  the  greatness  and  power  of  Yahweh  but  also  by  his  moral 
character.  His  leading  attributes  are  justice  and  fidelity. 
He  does  not  regard  faces  nor  take  bribes;  he  secures  the 
rights  of  the  orphan  and  the  widow;  he  loves  the  client,  giv- 
ing him  bread  and  clothing  (10  :  17/.).  He  keeps  covenant 
and  loving-kindness  with  them  that  love  him  and  keep  his 
commandments,  to  a  thousand  generations,  but  repays  them 
that  hate  him  by  destroying  them  (7  :  10/.).  He  is  merci- 
ful even  to  sinners  if  they  repent:  "Yahweh  thy  God  is  a 


186  THE  KELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

merciful  God;  he  will  not  fail  thee  nor  destroy  thee,  nor  for- 
get the  covenant  with  thy  fathers  which  he  swore  unto  them" 
(4  :  31).  This  idea  of  the  covenant  goes  back  to  early  times, 
as  we  have  seen.  The  Deuteronomists  dwell  upon  it  with 
almost  wearisome  iteration.  The  covenant  by  which  Yah- 
weh  and  Israel  were  bound  to  each  other  was  entered  into 
with  the  forefathers.  It  was  an  act  of  free  grace  on  the 
part  of  Yahweh:  "Say  not  in  thy  heart  after  Yahweh  thy 
God  has  driven  them  (the  Canaanites)  out  before  thee:  For 
my  righteousness  Yahweh  has  brought  me  into  this  land, 
whereas  for  the  wickedness  of  these  nations  Yahweh  drives 
them  out  before  thee.  Not  for  thy  righteousness  or  for  the 
uprightness  of  thy  heart  dost  thou  go  in  to  possess  the  land, 
but  for  the  wickedness  of  these  nations  Yahweh  thy  God 
drives  them  out  before  thee,  to  establish  the  word  which  he 
swore  to  thy  fathers"  (9  :  4/.).  The  proof  that  Israel  was 
not  chosen  for  its  righteousness  is  found  in  the  record  of  the 
wilderness  wandering  which  is  rehearsed  to  show  their  con- 
stant disobedience  (9  : 7-20).  And  in  like  manner  the 
choice  of  them  had  not  been  made  because  of  their  greatness, 
for  they  were  few  in  number  (7  :  7).  The  reader  is  shut  up 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  election  of  Israel  was  an  act  of 
Yahweh's  mere  good  pleasure. 

This  election  brings  Israel  into  such  relations  with  Yahweh 
that  it  is  properly  called  his  own  possession,  a  phrase  which 
frequently  recurs  (7  : 6;  14  :  2;  26  :  18;  cf.  Ex.  19  : 5).  The 
relationship  may  also  be  defined  as  that  of  father  and  son: 
"You  are  sons  of  Yahweh  your  God"  (14  : 1).  Hosea  had 
already  said  that  Yahweh  had  called  his  son  out  of  Egypt, 
but  theDeuteronomist  makes  the  conception  more  individual: 
each  Israelite  may  call  himself  a  son  of  Yahweh.  The  con- 
ception may  have  been  a  current  one,  however,  for  in  an 
older  source  the  Moabites  are  called  sons  and  daughters  of 
Chemosh  (Num.  21  :  29).  The  originality  of  the  Deuterono- 
mist  consists  in  his  making  all  these  ideas  bear  on  the  ques- 
tion of  obedience  to  the  law  which  he  promulgates.  Sons 
should  obey  a  father;  a  sacred  people  should  show  their  sepa- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  187 

rateness  from  other  nations  by  conformity  to  the  will  of  their 
God;  the  people  of  the  covenant  are  bound  by  the  terms  of 
the  covenant,  and  this  means  obedience.  Yahweh,  on  his 
part,  has  been  faithful  and  has  a  right  to  expect  fidelity  on 
the  part  of  Israel.  Yahweh's  beneficence  calls  for  gratitude, 
and  gratitude  is  another  motive  to  obedience. 

One  of  the  most  distinct  statements  of  the  author's  posi- 
tion is  the  one  which  comes  near  the  close  of  the  book :  "  Thou 
hast  avouched  Yahweh  this  day  to  be  thy  God,  and  that 
thou  wouldst  walk  in  his  ways,  and  keep  his  commandments 
and  his  ordinances  and  his  statutes,  and  wouldst  hearken  to 
his  voice;  and  Yahweh  has  avouched  thee  this  day  to  be  a 
people  for  his  own  possession  as  he  has  promised  thee,  and 
that  thou  shouldst  keep  all  his  commandments;  and  to  make 
thee  high  above  all  peoples  that  he  has  made  in  praise  and  in 
name  and  in  honour"  (26  :  17-19).  The  ethical  character  of 
the  will  thus  emphasised  is  brought  out  by  our  author's 
treatment  of  the  Decalogue.  The  idea  of  a  decalogue  as  the 
basis  of  the  covenant  is  as  old  as  the  Yahwist.  But  the 
covenant  of  the  Yahwist  is  a  plain  case  of  bargain  with  the 
Divinity.  Yahweh  agrees  to  go  with  the  people  and  give 
them  possession  of  Canaan  if  they  will  agree  to  pay  him  the 
dues  at  the  sanctuary;  and  the  commands  of  this  earlier 
decalogue  are  concerned  with  these  dues — the  festivals,  the 
firstlings,  and  the  first-fruits  (Ex.  34).  An  enormous  advance 
is  registered  therefore  by  the  Deuteronomist  when  he  makes 
the  Decalogue  entirely  ethical.  God  now  commands  nothing 
in  the  way  of  sacrifice,  but  he  enjoins  the  duties  which  man 
owes  his  fellow  man,  along  with  such  reverence  as  is  due  to 
God  himself.  Even  the  desire  of  the  heart  is  to  be  regu- 
lated in  accordance  with  the  law  of  right  (Deut.  5  :  1-21). 
The  supremacy  of  ethical  above  ritual  requirements  is  indi- 
cated further  by  making  this  Decalogue  the  covenant  pro- 
posed by  Yahweh  himself  at  Horeb  and  accepted  by  the 
people  with  fear  and  trembling.  In  thus  distinguishing  it, 
the  author  shows  himself  the  heir  of  the  best  prophetic 
tradition. 


188  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Heir  of  the  best  prophetic  tradition  we  may  also  call  him 
in  the  emphasis  he  lays  on  the  social  programme  of  the 
prophets.  He  constantly  urges  the  claims  of  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed.  The  wage-earner,  whether  Israelite  or  for- 
eigner, is  to  receive  his  pay  promptly  at  the  close  of  each 
day  (24  :  15);  the  gleanings  of  field,  olive-yard,  and  vine- 
yard are  to  be  left  for  the  client,  the  orphan,  and  the  widow 
(24  :  19/.);  the  festivals  at  the  sanctuary  are  to  be  occasions 
for  helping  slaves  and  the  dependent  classes,  among  which 
we  find  the  Levites  (16  :  11,  14).  This  mention  of  the  Le- 
vites  is  noteworthy,  for  it  shows  that  the  priestly  class  as  a 
whole  was  needy,  dependent  on  the  charity  of  the  well-to- 
do  (12  :  18;  14  :  27;  18  :  1-4).  The  Israelites  are  to  remem- 
ber that  they  had  been  slaves  in  Egypt  and  to  sympathise 
with  the  slave  accordingly  (16  :  12;  24  :  22).  Yahweh  loves 
the  client  and  gives  him  food  and  raiment;  love  for  the 
client  therefore  becomes  a  part  of  religion  (10  :  18).  The 
Sabbath  is  to  be  observed  in  order  that  the  slave  may  have  a 
time  of  rest  from  his  toil  (5  :  14).  The  runaway  slave  is  not 
to  be  returned  to  his  master;  the  hungry  man  has  a  right  to 
eat  from  field  and  vineyard;  the  millstone,  an  indispensable 
implement  in  every  household,  must  not  be  taken  as  pledge 
for  a  loan;  the  garment  of  the  widow  must  not  be  taken  in 
any  case;  the  cloak  of  the  poor  man,  if  taken,  must  be  re- 
turned to  him  at  sunset  that  he  may  have  covering  for  the 
night;  every  seven  years  there  is  to  be  a  remission  of  debt 
for  all  poor  debtors  (15  :  1-3).  The  earnestness  of  the  author 
in  insisting  on  this  last  command  indicates  perhaps  that 
he  was  not  very  confident  of  its  practicability,  and  in  fact 
some  of  these  regulations  are  impossible  of  enforcement. 
None  the  less  they  testify  to  the  writer's  moral  sense.  In- 
justice is  an  abomination  to  Yahweh — in  the  matter  of 
weights  and  measures  (25  :  13-15),  for  example,  and  in  the 
matter  of  bribery  (16  :  18-20). 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  humanitarian  regula- 
tions are  intended  for  Israel  alone.  A  very  different  stand- 
ard is  set  up  for  the  relations  between  Israelites  and  gentiles. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  189 

Usury  may  be  exacted  of  the  foreigner  but  not  of  the  fellow 
Israelite  (23  :  20/.).  The  year  of  release  is  for  one  and  not 
for  the  other  (15  :  3).  The  "stranger  within  thy  gates,"  so 
often  commended  to  the  mercy  of  the  reader,  does  not  mean 
any  foreigner  who  happens  to  be  in  the  country,  but  the 
client  who  has  come  into  definite  relations  of  dependence  to 
some  citizen,  and  who  is  therefore  himself  on  the  way  to 
full  citizenship.  Other  foreigners  are  still  regarded  as  ene- 
mies. The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek;  the  crying  sin  of  Israel 
in  the  past  had  been  worship  of  other  gods  than  Yahweh, 
and  temptation  had  come  from  those  foreigners  who  were 
most  closely  in  contact  with  Israel,  that  is,  the  Canaanites. 
Hence  the  sharp  contrast  between  the  treatment  of  Israelites 
(including  the  clients)  and  the  treatment  of  Canaanites. 
These  latter  are  to  be  exterminated  without  mercy.  In  the 
belief  of  the  author  all  the  calamities  of  the  past  had  come 
from  yielding  to  the  seductions  of  these  idolaters. 

There  was  a  measure  of  truth  in  this  charge.  The  orig- 
inal worship  of  Yahweh  had  been  simple,  even  austere.  The 
worship  which  the  people  had  adopted  in  Canaan  was  ornate, 
sensual,  licentious.  On  this  ground  the  Rechabites  thought 
that  fidelity  to  Yahweh  required  avoidance  of  all  Canaan- 
itish  customs.  The  mass  of  the  people,  however,  saw  in 
Yahweh  a  Baal,  and  their  worship  differed  little  from  the 
orgies  of  the  early  inhabitants.  From  the  ethical  point  of 
view  the  reaction  of  the  Deuteronomist  is  quite  intelligible, 
most  clearly  directed  at  the  old  sanctuaries  of  the  land: 
"  You  shall  surely  destroy  all  the  sacred  places  in  which  the 
nations  that  you  dispossess  serve  their  gods,  upon  the  moun- 
tains and  upon  the  hills  and  under  every  green  tree;  you  shall 
pull  down  their  altars,  and  break  in  pieces  their  pillars,  and 
burn  their  asheras  with  fire;  you  shall  hew  down  the  graven 
images  of  their  gods  and  destroy  their  names  out  of  that 
place"  (12  :  2/.).  Since  pillars  and  asheras  were  the  regular 
accompaniment  of  the  altars  of  Yahweh,  and  since  even  the 
graven  images  often  represented  him,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  author  was  aiming  at  all  the  sanctuaries  in  which, 


190  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

as  he  supposed,  Canaanitish  influences  were  discernible  even 
though  they  were  ostensibly  dedicated  to  the  God  of  Israel. 

The  earnestness  revealed  by  these  prohibitions  reminds 
us  of  the  zeal  of  the  Puritans  against  statues  and  relics  of 
the  saints.  But  in  the  mind  of  the  Israelite  reformer  the 
extermination  of  idolatry  meant  also  the  extermination  of 
idolaters.  All  the  Canaanites  (he  ordains)  are  to  be  put 
under  the  old  Semitic  ban  (herem).  By  this  everything  in 
the  enemy's  city  was  to  be  utterly  destroyed,  as  is  set  forth 
in  the  story  of  Achan.  With  enemies  outside  of  Canaan 
terms  may  be  made;  if  they  surrender  they  shall  be  made 
tributary;  if  they  refuse  and  are  conquered  the  men  may 
be  slain  and  the  women  and  children  may  be  made  slaves: 
"But  from  the  cities  of  these  peoples  which  Yahweh  thy 
God  gives  thee  for  an  inheritance  thou  shalt  save  alive  none 
that  breathes,  but  thou  shalt  utterly  destroy  them.  .  .  . 
That  they  may  not  teach  you  to  do  after  the  abominations 
which  they  have  done  unto  their  gods;  so  would  you  sin 
against  Yahweh  your  God"  (20  :  16-18).  Logically,  all  cov- 
enants with  the  ancient  inhabitants  are  prohibited.  It  is 
to  us  some  consolation  to  think  that  the  author  is  setting 
forth  an  ideal  no  longer  attainable,  for  in  his  day  there  were 
no  Canaanites  to  be  exterminated,  amalgamation  with  the 
Israelites  being  an  accomplished  fact. 

Israelites  who  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  polytheism 
were  to  be  treated  with  the  same  severity.  A  rumour  that 
any  Israelite  city  was  worshipping  other  gods  than  Yahweh 
was  to  be  promptly  investigated,  and  if  it  was  found  to  be 
true,  the  guilty  city  was  to  be  destroyed,  the  whole  popu- 
lation put  to  the  sword,  the  cattle  slaughtered,  even  things 
without  life  were  to  be  burned  as  a  holocaust  to  Yahweh 
(13  : 13-17).  The  old  ritual  idea  of  taboo  is  here  in  evi- 
dence; whatever  has  been  dedicated  to  another  god  be- 
comes a  source  of  defilement  to  Israel,  and  even  to  touch 
it  will  bring  one  into  a  state  of  pollution  and  expose  him 
to  the  wrath  of  Yahweh.  Drastic  action  was  to  be  taken 
against  individuals  who  seduce  men  from  their  allegiance 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  191 

to  Yahweh,  especially  false  prophets,  soothsayers,  and  all 
who  were  addicted  to  magic  arts.  The  faithful  Israelite 
was  to  spare  neither  brother,  wife,  nor  friend  if  any  of  them 
became  a  source  of  temptation  (13  :  7-12).  Men  must  not 
even  inquire  how  the  Canaanites  worship  their  gods  lest 
they  be  led  to  adopt  their  customs  (12  :  29/.).  The  tradi- 
tional marks  of  mourning  are  forbidden  because  they  are 
connected  with  the  worship  of  the  manes  (14  :  1).  The  ex- 
change of  garments  between  men  and  women,  the  planting 
of  different  seeds  together,  ploughing  with  a  mixed  team, 
and  wearing  of  garments  made  of  wool  and  linen  combined 
are  all  under  the  ban,  doubtless  because  all  were  in  some 
way  associated  with  other  divinities.  Even  the  silver  and 
gold  which  have  been  in  contact  with  idols  are  an  abomina- 
tion, and  he  who  takes  them  will  fall  under  the  curse  of 
Yahweh  (7  : 25). 

The  number  and  minuteness  of  these  specifications  justi- 
fies us  in  making  Deuteronomy  introduce  the  first  stage  of 
legalism.  The  authors  who  wrought  out  this  system  had 
the  not  uncommon  idea  that  a  complete  rule  of  life  can  be 
written  down  for  men's  guidance.  They  supposed  that 
they  had,  in  fact,  written  down  such  a  rule,  and  that  it 
represented  the  divine  will.  The  word  command  and  its 
derivatives  occur  no  less  than  sixty  times  in  the  book  of 
Deuteronomy  alone,  and  the  phrase  "commandments  and 
ordinances,"  or  in  the  fuller  form,  "commandments,  stat- 
utes, and  judgments,"  is  a  mark  of  Deuteronomic  authorship 
wherever  found.  By  a  writer  of  this  school,  David  is  made 
to  charge  Solomon  in  these  words:  "Observe  thou  that 
which  Yahweh,  thy  God,  commits  to  thee,  by  walking  in 
his  ways,  and  keeping  his  commandments,  his  judgments, 
and  his  testimonies,  according  to  what  is  written  in  the 
Tora  of  Moses"  (I  Kings  2  :  3).  The  idea  is  clear:  Yahweh 
has  laid  down  a  path  in  which  a  man  must  walk,  and  the 
first  inquiry  of  the  righteous  man  should  be:  What  doth 
Yahweh  require?  The  hearer  or  reader  should  impress  the 
words  of  the  book  on  his  heart  and  soul,  bind  them  on  his 


192  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

hand,  write  them  between  his  eyes  and  on  the  door-post  of 
his  house,  teach  them  to  his  children,  talk  of  them  con- 
stantly, meditate  on  them  day  and  night  (Deut.  11  :  18-20). 
The  reason  is  the  intrinsic  excellence  of  the  law,  for  in  the 
view  of  the  writers  no  nation  ever  had  righteous  statutes 
like  this  Tora  (4  :  8).  For  this  reason  it  can  never  be  sur- 
passed, and  men  are  solemnly  forbidden  either  to  add  to 
it  or  to  take  away  from  it  (4  :  2). 

It  is  in  this  insistence  on  its  own  completeness  and  on 
the  regulation  of  the  whole  life  by  its  precepts  that  Deu- 
teronomy differs  from  the  earlier  documents  which  seem  to 
belong  in  the  same  class.  The  Decalogue  of  J  specifies  the 
terms  of  the  covenant  which  are  binding  on  Israel;  the 
Covenant  code  provides  a  law  for  certain  cases  which  might 
arise.  But  neither  Decalogue  nor  Covenant  code  attempted 
to  regulate  the  whole  life  of  the  individual.  Deuteronomy 
marks  a  new  stage  of  thought  by  its  attempt  to  do  just  this 
— to  lay  down  in  black  and  white  a  complete  rule  of  life  for 
the  Israelite.  That,  in  fact,  it  codifies  existing  social  cus- 
tom we  have  already  seen.  On  the  side  of  ritual  it  draws 
upon  priestly  tradition.  In  some  cases  it  adopts  supersti- 
tions which  were  contrary  to  its  own  principles,  but  which 
were  too  strongly  intrenched  in  popular  belief  to  be  done 
away.  Thus  it  requires  the  sacrifice  of  a  heifer  to  placate 
the  ghost  of  a  slain  man  (21  :  1-9).  It  does  not  call  the 
rite  a  sacrifice,  and  it  attempts  to  make  it  innocuous  by 
placing  it  under  the  supervision  of  the  priests,  but  its  orig- 
inal nature  is  only  thinly  disguised. 

Although  the  authors  suppose  their  code  to  be  complete 
and  final,  they  do  not  mean  to  supersede  the  prophets,  the 
divinely  inspired  teachers  of  Israel.  They  represent  Moses 
as  the  ideal  prophet  and  put  in  his  mouth  a  promise  that 
there  shall  be  a  succession  of  similar  teachers  (18  :  15-22). 
Yet  these  prophets  of  the  future  are  to  be  subordinate  to 
the  law  now  promulgated,  for  even  if  they  seem  to  have 
supernatural  sanction  for  their  preaching  they  are  not  to 
be  listened  to  in  case  their  doctrine  differs  from  that  of  the 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  193 

book.  It  did  not  occur  to  the  writer  that  by  this  regula- 
tion he  made  the  prophet  superfluous  and  opened  the  way 
to  the  scribe,  the  interpreter  of  the  written  document.  No 
more  did  he  see  that  his  emphasis  of  the  Jerusalem  sanc- 
tuary would  put  enormous  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
hierarchy,  the  guild  which  had  the  temple  already  in  pos- 
session. 

The  fundamental  character  of  the  Deuteronomic  require- 
ment of  a  single  sanctuary  must  be  evident.  What  is  of 
equal  importance  is  that  the  sacrifices  are  now  first  legiti- 
mated in  an  ostensibly  prophetic  document.  The  earlier 
prophets  had  denounced  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices,  tithes, 
and  free-will  offerings  as  indifferent  or  even  abhorrent  to 
Yahweh.  But  the  Deuteronomist  enjoins  them  as  equally 
important  with  justice  and  mercy.  Tradition  was  undoubt- 
edly on  his  side.  The  earlier  narratives  had  pointed  out 
that  the  sanctuaries  were  places  of  worship  for  the  patri- 
archs, and  that  they  had  sacrificed  there.  The  earlier  codes 
also  had  enjoined  that  all  Israelites  should  appear  before 
Yahweh  three  times  in  the  year,  and  that  they  should  not 
come  empty-handed.  The  eating  and  drinking  and  re- 
joicing before  Yahweh  which  had  scandalised  Amos  and 
Isaiah,  and  which  Hosea  had  identified  with  spiritual  adul- 
tery, is  now  made  a  part  of  the  law  of  Yahweh.  It  is,  to 
be  sure,  purified  from  some  of  its  more  notorious  abuses, 
and  its  concentration  at  the  central  sanctuary  made  it  more 
amenable  to  police  supervision.  Further,  the  ritual  require- 
ment is  combined  with  the  ethical,  and  the  attempt  is  made 
to  use  the  sacrifices  for  humanitarian  purposes.  The  tithe 
is  no  longer  simply  a  tribute  to  Yahweh;  it  is  to  be  given 
to  the  poor  and  needy,  they  being  in  some  sense  his  clients. 
Every  third  year  it  is  to  be  wholly  used  in  this  way,  while 
on  those  occasions  .when  it  is  brought  to  the  sanctuary  it  is 
to  be  shared  liberally  with  the  dependent  classes  (14  :  28/.). 
This  combination  of  ritual  and  ethical  requirements  was  of 
practical  importance,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  comparative 
failure  of  the  older  prophets  is  explained  by  the  fact  that 


194  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

they  made  no  allowance  for  the  human  longing  for  ritual. 
The  adoption  of  the  ritual  by  the  Deuteronomists  and  its 
concentration  at  Jerusalem  created,  we  may  say,  a  church 
which  was  able  to  survive  the  destruction  of  the  national 
life. 

The  doctrine  of  rewards  and  punishments  which  under- 
lies the  book  and  which  comes  frequently  into  distinct  ex- 
pression is  a  deduction  from  the  preaching  of  the  earlier 
prophets.  That  preaching  had  constantly  threatened  na- 
tional disaster  as  the  consequence  of  national  disobedience. 
Deuteronomy  formulates  the  theory  mechanically,  we  may 
say,  and  has  no  hesitation  in  giving  details.  The  frequent 
phrase,  "that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land,"  is  only  one 
example.  More  explicit  is  the  promise  that  the  rain  on 
which  the  productivity  of  the  land  depends  will  be  sent  in 
case  the  law  is  obeyed,  and  withheld  if  other  gods  are  wor- 
shipped (11  :  13-16).  The  fullest  statement  of  the  theory 
is  found  in  the  list  of  blessings  in  the  twenty-eighth  chapter, 
which  is  followed  by  an  even  more  elaborate  catalogue  of 
curses.  It  is  possible  that  a  precedent  existed  for  the  series 
of  curses  in  some  ancient  custom  performed  at  Mount  Ger- 
izim  (11  :  29;  27  :  11-26;  qf.  Joshua  8  :  30-35).  The  full 
force  of  these  curses  came  home  to  the  people  who  endured 
the  calamities  of  siege  and  exile  in  the  time  of  Nebuchad- 
rezzar, and  the  sense  of  sin  so  prominent  in  postexilic 
Judaism  arose  from  combining  the  words  of  Deuteronomy 
with  the  disasters  which  came  so  soon  after  its  promulga- 
tion. 

It  was  of  importance  for  the  later  development  of  religion 
that  the  earlier  history  of  Israel  was  rewritten,  or  at  least 
re-edited,  under  Deuteronomic  influence.  According  to  the 
view  of  the  Deuteronomic  editors  all  the  calamities  of  the 
people  in  the  past  had  come  from  their  lack  of  conformity 
to  the  Deuteronomic  standard.  The  almost  rhythmical  suc- 
cession of  victory  and  disaster  in  the  book  of  Judges  is  made 
to  teach  this  lesson.  Oppression  by  the  enemy  regularly 
follows  apostasy  from  Yahweh,  while  repentance  is  as  regu- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LEGALISM  195 

larly  followed  by  deliverance  (Judges  2  :  10-19).  In  the 
books  of  Kings  we  are  repeatedly  informed  that  the  people 
sacrificed  at  the  high  places  even  after  the  temple  was  built, 
and  the  prophets  who  are  introduced  in  those  books  to  re- 
buke the  people  or  the  rulers  enforce  the  thought  that  this 
defection  from  Yahweh  is  the  cause  of  their  calamities. 
The  whole  story,  from  the  time  of  Joshua  down,  is  made  the 
dark  picture  of  religious  declension  relieved  by  a  few  bright 
spots. 

To  point  the  contrast  the  history  of  the  conquest  was  re- 
written to  show  that  Joshua  was  a  worthy  successor  of 
Moses,  and  strictly  true  to  the  Deuteronomic  programme. 
What  actually  took  place  at  the  conquest  we  know  from  the 
fragment  preserved  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges.  Israelites 
and  Canaanites  amalgamated,  and  it  was  not  until  the  time 
of  Solomon  that  the  Israelite  element  became  predominant. 
But  the  Deuteronomist,  to  whom  everything  Canaanitish  is 
an  abomination,  makes  Joshua  exterminate  the  earlier  in- 
habitants, saving  alive  nothing  that  breathed.  The  only 
exception  was  made  by  the  Gibeonites  and  their  allies,  and 
they  obtained  their  treaty  by  fraud.  The  neglect  of  the 
Israelite  leaders  to  take  counsel  of  Yahweh  in  this  case  is 
censured,  with  the  implication  that  the  covenant  would  not 
have  been  allowed  had  he  been  consulted.  The  conclusion 
of  the  account  is  the  unhistorical  statement  that  Joshua  re- 
duced his  new  allies  to  slavery.1 

The  number  of  hands  that  must  have  been  employed  in 
this  reconstruction  of  the  history  shows  the  extent  of  the  in- 
fluence which  Deuteronomy  exerted  in  the  exilic  and  post- 
exilic  period.  Henceforth  Israel  was  the  people  of  a  book. 

1  Joshua  9  :  15  and  26 /.  On  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanites, 
cf.  10  :  40;  11  :  17;  6  :  17-24;  7  :  12-26. 


CHAPTER  XI 
EZEKIEL 

IN  the  death  of  the  state  of  Judah  it  might  seem  to  the 
onlooker  that  the  battle  for  a  purer  Yahweh  religion  had 
been  lost.  But  while  the  disintegration  in  Palestine  was 
for  the  time  complete,  there  was  a  spot  far  in  the  East  where 
the  ideas  to  which  the  prophets  had  given  expression  were 
cherished.  This  was  the  district  in  Babylonia  where  the 
exiles,  carried  away  in  597,  were  settled.  These  exiles  seem 
to  have  had  some  sort  of  civil  organisation  of  their  own. 
They  were  permitted  to  build  houses,  to  plant  gardens,  and 
to  consult  each  other  concerning  their  common  interests. 
At  first  their  cohesion  was  secured  by  the  hope  of  an  early 
return,  a  hope  which  was  fostered  by  prophets  of  their  own 
as  well  as  by  messages  from  Jerusalem.  When  this  hope 
was  rudely  shattered  by  the  fall  of  their  beloved  city  they 
were  still  united  by  the  bond  of  religion.  Their  faith  in 
Yahweh  was,  at  least  in  the  case  of  the  more  earnest, 
strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the  words  of  the  prophets  had 
been  fulfilled. 

The  most  drastic  expression  of  Yahweh's  threats  was,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  contained  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy. 
For  the  future  of  Judaism  it  was  an  important  fact  that  by 
the  fulfilment  of  these  threats  this  book  was  more  firmly 
fixed  in  the  regard  of  the  exiles.  Other  thoughts  expressed 
in  it  were  calculated  to  appeal  to  them.  The  strange 
customs  of  the  people  among  whom  they  found  themselves 
living  would  justify  Deuteronomy's  condemnation  of  all 
heathenism.  Not  less  important  was  the  assertion  that 
Yahweh  had  made  Israel  his  own  by  a  deliberate  act  of 

196 


EZEKIEL  197 

choice.  His  truth  and  righteousness,  emphasised  by  the 
calamity  which  had  fallen,  gave  ground  for  believing  that  he 
would  not  refuse  to  hear  the  prayer  of  the  penitent  who 
should  turn  to  him  with  all  their  heart.  The  soil  was  thus 
prepared  by  Deuteronomy  for  the  establishment  of  a  new 
type  of  religion,  and  the  man  to  cultivate  the  soil  was  not 
lacking. 

This  man  was  Ezekiel,  to  us  one  of  the  least  sympathetic 
of  the  Old  Testament  characters.  We  Occidentals  of  the 
twentieth  century  find  it  difficult  to  understand  his  exag- 
gerated visions,  his  fits  of  silence,  and  his  grotesque  actions. 
Yet  he  was  only  the  complete  example  of  a  man  possessed  by 
the  prophetic  ideal.  His  visions  differ  from  those  of  the 
other  prophets  only  in  their  pitiless  distinctness  of  detail; 
his  actions  only  carry  out  to  logical  sequence  the  belief  that 
the  prophet's  actions  are  a  part  of  his  message.  The  point 
in  which  he  differed  from  his  predecessors  is  due  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Deuteronomy.  What  he  receives  from  Yahweh  is  a 
book  (Ezek.  2  :  8  to  3  :  3).  In  a  sense  we  may  call  him  the 
first  of  the  scribes,  the  exponent  of  a  written  revelation. 
And  since  he  was  of  priestly  birth  and  training,  it  is  clear 
that  the  ritual  element  in  Deuteronomy  is  the  one  that  most 
distinctly  appealed  to  him.  The  priestly  ideal,  embodied 
in  the  word  sanctity,  was  already  emphasised  by  the  Deuter- 
onomist.  Ezekiel  reveals  his  own  point  of  view  when  he 
protests  his  own  scrupulosity  in  the  matter  of  ritual  cleanli- 
ness (4  :  14).  From  this  point  of  view  we  must  interpret 
his  work. 

Ezekiel  most  distinctly  influenced  his  people  by  his  plans 
for  the  future.  But  before  these  could  be  fully  appreciated 
the  prophet  had  a  destructive  work  to  do.  This  was  to  rid 
the  exiles  of  many  cherished  notions.  The  prophetic  ideal 
had  never  really  impressed  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 
By  Ezekiel  it  was  so  firmly  held  that  he  demanded  a  com- 
plete break  with  the  past.  Not  that  he  had  ceased  to  be  an 
Israelite;  the  God  whom  he  worshipped  was  the  ancestral 
God,  Yahweh,  who  in  the  most  literal  sense  had  taken  up 


198  THE   RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

his  dwelling  at  the  centre  of  the  earth — in  Jerusalem:  "In 
the  midst  of  the  nations  I  have  set  her  [Jerusalem]  and  round 
about  her  are  the  lands"  (5  :  5) — such  is  the  declaration  of 
Yahweh  himself.  Temporarily  the  temple  was  abandoned, 
because  it  had  been  too  much  polluted  for  Yahweh  to  re- 
main there;  but  it  was  his  chosen  dwelling-place,  and  he 
would  surely  return  thither.1  In  the  first  period  of  his 
preaching  the  prophet  uttered  the  most  sweeping  condemna- 
tions of  Israel's  past;  if  the  people  continued  to  walk  in  the 
ways  in  which  the  fathers  had  walked  they  were  sure  to 
perish. 

The  prophet's  attitude  toward  foreign  nations  is  that  of 
the  narrowest  patriot.  This  might  be  supposed  to  come  from 
the  bitterness  which  the  misfortunes  of  Judah  had  produced. 
But  this  would  be  an  incomplete  statement.  Ezekiel  desired 
not  so  much  to  see  vengeance  wreaked  upon  the  oppressor  as 
to  see  his  God  vindicated  from  the  aspersions  which  the 
heathen  were  casting  upon  him.  The  fall  of  Jerusalem 
seemed  to  prove  that  Yahweh  was  too  weak  to  protect  his 
own  city  and  his  own  temple.  Ezekiel  knew  that  he  was  the 
omnipotent  one,  and  that  the  future  must  prove  this  to  the 
heathen  themselves.  Yahweh  himself  declares  that  the  re- 
sult of  his  judgments  will  be  to  make  them  know  that  he  is 
Yahweh  (22  :  16  and  elsewhere).  Justice  requires  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem,  but  it  requires  also  the  punishment  of  the 
gentiles. 

Ezekiel  gives  a  detailed  description  of  the  vision  which 
convinced  him  of  his  prophetic  mission,  and  in  it  we  discover 
the  influence  of  ancient  Israelite  tradition.  What  he  saw 
was  a  mighty  cloud  interfused  with  fire,  in  which  as  it  drew 
nearer  he  discovered  four  living  creatures,  each  with  four 
faces  and  four  wings.  Beneath  them  were  four  wheels,  and 
in  the  middle  space  an  altar-fire.  Above  was  a  throne,  and 

1  It  is  probably  not  without  significance  that  Ezekiel  nowhere  uses 
the  Deuteronomic  phrase  concerning  Yahweh's  making  his  name  dwell 
in  the  temple.  He  thought  too  realistically  to  be  satisfied  with  such  a 
statement. 


EZEKIEL  199 

on  it  a  human  form  of  supernal  brightness,  which  he  discov- 
ered to  be  Yahweh  himself.  The  whole  is  called  by  the 
prophet  the  glory  of  Yahweh  (1  :  28).  The  thunder-cloud,  in 
which  the  earliest  Israelite  belief  saw  the  chariot  of  Yahweh, 
seems  to  furnish  the  basis  for  this  vision.  The  composite 
figures  which  appear  in  it  are  the  cherubim  which  guarded 
the  ark  in  the  temple  of  Solomon.  The  altar-fire  is  that  of 
the  temple  itself.  The  originality  of  the  prophet  is  to  be 
found  not  in  the  details  of  the  vision  but  in  the  use  which 
he  makes  of  them.  The  cherubim  are  transformed  into 
supporters  of  the  throne;  the  altar  is  made  movable  that 
it  may  accompany  Yahweh  in  his  wanderings.  The  wheels 
are  to  show  that  Yahweh  is  not  bound  to  a  single  spot,  but 
can  move  freely  to  all  quarters  of  the  earth.  Since  the  tem- 
ple is  to  be  destroyed  Yahweh  is  about  to  leave  it  and  take 
up  his  residence  in  the  mountain  of  the  gods  in  the  far  north, 
whence  he  will  visit  his  faithful  exiles  at  intervals  until  the 
temple  is  rebuilt,  when  he  will  return  there  as  of  old. 

The  celestial  vision  so  fills  EzekiePs  heart  that  he  never 
reflects  on  the  heathen  divinities,  and  never  inquires  whether 
they  have  any  reality.  His  only  allusion  to  them  is  in  pas- 
sages which  tell  of  Israel's  idolatry.  Here  they  are  called 
"abominations,"  or  "sticks."1  Yahweh,  however,  is  con- 
ceived of  as  highly  anthropomorphic.  In  fact,  he  shows 
human  passion  in  a  marked  degree  in  the  very  thing  which 
Ezekiel  has  most  at  heart,  that  is,  his  anger  at  the  sins  of  his 
people  and  his  determination  to  vindicate  his  own  reputa- 
tion. Trespass  on  the  sanctity  of  Yahweh  is  not  only  dis- 
obedience to  the  divine  law;  it  is  insult  to  the  divine  majesty. 
This  is  what  arouses  the  anger  of  the  divinity  both  against 
Israel  and  against  the  other  nations.  The  detailed  statement 
may  be  cited :  "  On  the  day  that  I  chose  Israel  and  swore  to 
the  offspring  of  the  house  of  Jacob,  and  made  myself  known 
to  them  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  saying:  I  am  Yahweh  your 
God — on  that  day  I  swore  to  them  that  I  would  bring  them 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  to  aland  flowing  with  milk  and  honey, 
1  Gillulim ;  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  not  quite  certain. 


200  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

the  glory  of  all  lands.  I  said  to  them:  Cast  away  every  one 
the  abomination  of  his  eyes;  defile  not  yourselves  with  the 
idols  of  the  land  of  Egypt;  I  am  Yahweh  your  God.  But 
they  rebelled  against  me  and  would  not  hear  me;  they  did 
not  cast  away  the  abominations  of  their  eyes,  nor  forsake  the 
idols  of  Egypt.  Then  I  resolved  to  pour  out  my  fury  upon 
them  and  accomplish  my  anger  upon  them  in  the  land  of 
Egypt;  but  I  dealt  with  them  for  my  name's  sake,  lest  it 
should  be  profaned  in  the  eyes  of  the  nations  in  the  midst 
of  which  they  were,  and  in  whose  sight  I  had  made  known  to 
them  my  purpose  to  bring  them  forth  from  the  land  of  Egypt. 
I  brought  them  forth  from  the  land  of  Egypt  and  brought 
them  into  the  wilderness"  (20  :  5-10).  The  passage  goes 
on  to  show  that  the  same  thing  had  been  repeated,  first  in 
the  wilderness,  but  also  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  In  every 
case  the  people  had  been  unfaithful  and  had  served  other 
gods.  In  each  particular  case  of  unfaithfulness,  also,  Yahweh 
had  been  moved  to  destroy  them,  but  had  reflected  for  his 
name's  sake  and  had  spared  them. 

From  this  chapter  we  see  that  Ezekiel  condemned  the 
whole  past  history  of  Israel.  In  fact,  as  has  been  said  by 
another,  it  was  he  who  taught  the  people  to  misunderstand 
this  history.  To  the  earlier  prophets  the  wilderness  wander- 
ing was  a  time  of  harmony  between  God  and  the  people 
(Hosea  11  :  1-3;  Jer.  2  :  2/.),  and  the  defection  had  begun 
only  after  the  entrance  into  Canaan.  But  in  the  view  of 
Ezekiel  idolatry  had  begun  in  Egypt,  and  Yahweh  would  have 
been  justified  in  destroying  the  people  at  the  very  beginning. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  result  of  his  reflection  on  the  sin- 
fulness  of  his  contemporaries,  for  he  finds  no  terms  strong 
enough  to  describe  the  state  of  things  in  the  Jerusalem  of 
his  own  day.  His  vision  takes  him  to  the  sinful  city,  and  he 
sets  forth  in  detail  what  he  sees  there.  The  parable  of  the 
adulterous  wife,  first  used  by  Hosea,  is  adopted  by  Ezekiel 
and  carried  out  in  detail,  and  the  parable  is  repeated  in  such 
form  as  to  indict  the  two  sister  nations  (16  and  23).  The 
figure  of  the  vine,  used  by  the  older  prophets,,  is  also  taken 


EZEKIEL  201 

up  by  him,  but  given  a  new  turn:  "Of  what  use  is  the  wood 
of  the  vine,  the  wild  stock  of  the  forest?  Is  even  a  peg  got 
from  it  to  hang  things  on?"  (15  :  2.) 

The  crying  sin  of  Judah,  as  of  Israel,  is  the  worship  of  other 
gods,  and  this  the  prophet  supposes  to  have  been  carried  on 
at  all  the  sanctuaries  of  the  land:  "I  brought  them  into  the 
land  which  I  had  sworn  to  give  them,  and  wherever  they  saw 
a  high  hill  or  a  leafy  tree  there  they  offered  sacrifice,  there 
they  presented  their  offensive  oblations,  there  they  proffered 
their  sweet  savours  and  there  they  poured  forth  their  liba- 
tions" (20  :  28).  This  was  not  only  treason  to  Yahweh;  it 
was  also  direct  disobedience  to  his  commands.  The  view  of 
Deuteronomy,  according  to  which  a  specific  law  was  pro- 
mulgated in  the  wilderness,  is  adopted  to  the  full:  "I  gave 
them  my  statutes  and  taught  them  my  ordinances  which  if  a 
man  do  he  shall  live  in  them;  I  gave  my  Sabbaths  also  to 
be  a  sign  between  me  and  them  that  they  might  know  that 
it  was  I,  Yahweh,  who  sanctified  them.  But  the  house  of 
Israel  rebelled  against  me  in  the  wilderness,  my  statutes 
they  did  not  keep,  they  rejected  my  ordinances  which  if  a 
man  do  he  shall  live  in  them,  and  they  sorely  profaned  my 
Sabbaths"  (20  :  11-13). 

This  last  phrase — "they  profaned  my  Sabbaths" — shows 
the  distinctly  priestly  point  of  view.  Sin  is  defilement,  and 
the  object  of  the  commandments  is  to  prevent  pollution  of 
that  which  is  sacred  to  Yahweh.  The  land  which  he  has 
chosen  for  himself  should  be  kept  clean  from  all  that  he  ob- 
jected to.  The  indictment  charges  that  Israel  defiled  this 
land — committed  sacrilege,  that  is.  The  acme  of  guilt  was 
reached  when  the  very  temple  was  profaned  by  idolatry. 
The  vision,  in  which  the  prophet  sees  the  image  which  causes 
jealousy  in  the  temple  court,  sees  the  women  weeping  for 
Tammuz  (a  Babylonian  god)  in  the  sacred  enclosure,  sees 
the  elders  of  Judah  burning  incense  to  their  fetishes  in 
a  chamber  of  the  building,  sees  also  the  worshippers  of  the 
sun  turning  their  backs  on  Yahweh  (chapter  8),  is  intended  to 
make  the  reader  realise  the  extent  of  the  profanation.  The 


202  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

prophet  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  Judah  is  worse  than 
Sodom  (16  :  48,  51/.).  The  conclusion  is  that  the  time  of 
forbearance  is  past  and  that  the  catastrophe  is  at  hand 
(chapter  9).  What  is  ritually  unclean  must  be  cast  out  of 
Yahweh's  land.  After  the  blow  has  fallen  the  prophet, 
looking  back  upon  it,  makes  Yahweh  say:  "In  my  sight 
their  ways  were  like  the  most  abominable  ceremonial  im- 
purity; thereupon  I  poured  my  fury  on  them  for  the  blood 
they  had  shed  in  my  land,  and  because  they  had  defiled  it 
with  their  idols;  according  to  their  ways  and  deeds  I 
judged  them"  (36  :  17-19). 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Ezekiel  is  indifferent 
to  ethics.  The  specifications  in  the  indictment  make  his 
position  clear.  He  is  in  line  with  the  best  prophetic  tra- 
dition, and  in  this  he  follows  the  lead  of  Deuteronomy, 
when  he  denounces  bloodshed,  oppression  of  the  client,  the 
fatherless,  and  the  widow,  incest,  bribery,  usury,  and  fraud 
(22  :  1-12).  A  specific  instance  is  his  condemnation  of 
Zedekiah's  perjury  (17  :  16).  But  in  the  same  breath  with 
these  crimes  we  find  enumerated  what  we  regard  as  ritual 
offences — eating  with  the  blood,  despising  the  sacred  things, 
and  profaning  the  Sabbaths.  The  priestly  habit  of  mind, 
it  is  evident,  classes  all  transgressions  as  defilement;  all  sin 
is  invasion  of  the  sanctity  of  Yahweh.1  The  implications 
of  this  view  are  more  extensive  than  we  at  first  realise. 
The  unconscious  violations  of  taboo  are  as  dangerous  as 
witting  transgressions.  The  effect  is  evident  in  the  later 
Levitical  documents.  What  Ezekiel  calls  the  justice  of 
Yahweh  is  the  almost  mechanical  reaction  of  his  sanctity 
against  that  which  is  unclean. 

In  the  application  of  this  justice  to  the  individual  this 
prophet  goes  beyond  any  that  we  have  yet  met.  In  his  day 
the  problem  of  the  individual  was  brought  to  the  front. 
After  the  introduction  of  Deuteronomy  there  was  a  clearly 
marked  line  of  division  between  the  righteous,  those  who 

1  The  prevailing  view  of  sin  in  the  Babylonian  religion  seems  to  be 
the  same. 


EZEKIEL  203 

adhered  to  the  book  and  strove  to  obey  it,  and  the  sinners 
who  disobeyed.  But  in  the  calamities  which  befell  the 
state  the  righteous  suffered  with  the  wicked.  Jeremiah  had 
wrestled  with  the  problem  whether  this  was  consonant  with 
the  justice  of  Yahweh,  but  Ezekiel  was  compelled  to  con- 
front it  even  more  directly.  His  solution  was  the  assertion 
that  Yahweh  deals  with  every  individual  in  exact  accor- 
dance with  his  deserts.  And  he  meant  that  this  justice  was 
meted  out  in  the  present  life — the  idea  of  a  retribution  be- 
yond the  grave  had  not  yet  arisen  in  Israel.  The  boldness 
with  which  the  prophet  announces  the  programme  of  the 
divine  administration  arouses  our  wonder:  "The  soul  that 
sins  shall  die;  the  son  shall  not  bear  the  consequences  of  the 
father's  iniquity,  and  the  father  shall  not  bear  the  conse- 
quences of  the  son's  iniquity.  The  righteousness  of  the 
righteous  shall  be  put  down  to  his  account,  and  the  wick- 
edness of  the  wicked  to  his  account"  (18  :  20).  The  popular 
doctrine  was  other:  "The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes, 
and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge."  Tradition  was  em- 
bodied in  this  saying,  as  we  see  in  the  earlier  documents  and 
in  later  ones  also.  The  solidarity  of  the  family  made  the 
children  suffer  for  the  father;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
merits  of  the  father  might  induce  Yahweh  to  spare  the  son 
who  had  offended — it  was  for  David's  sake  that  Solomon  was 
dealt  with  so  mildly.  Ezekiel  breaks  with  this  tradition  and 
the  pains  he  takes  to  set  forth  his  theory  shows  his  con- 
sciousness of  its  novelty.  He  declares  that,  so  far  from  the 
fathers  being  able  to  help  their  children  in  the  coming  ca- 
lamity, even  Noah,  Daniel,  and  Job  would  not  be  able  to 
deliver  their  children  from  punishment  (14  :  14).  Pictori- 
ally  the  same  thing  is  said  when  the  angel  is  told  to  mark 
the  few  righteous  men  in  Jerusalem  before  the  slaughter  of 
the  rest  (9:4). 

The  bearing  of  this  thought  upon  the  prophet's  activity 
among  his  compatriots  must  be  evident.  He  did  not  believe 
that  the  punishment  would  cease  with  the  fall  of  Jerusalem. 
Upon  the  exiles  there  would  be  further  visitation.  It  was 


204  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

his  mission  by  all  means  to  save  some;  hence  his  exhortation: 
"Turn  from  your  evil  ways,  O  house  of  Israel;  why  will  you 
die?  "  (33  :  1 1 .)  And  Yahweh  swears  by  his  own  life  that  he 
does  not  desire  the  death  of  the  wicked  but  rather  that  he 
should  turn  from  his  way  and  live  (18  :  32).  The  appeal  to 
the  individual  which  results  makes  Ezekiel  the  first  pastor 
in  history.  He  watched  for  souls  as  one  that  must  give 
account.  This  is  well  brought  out  in  his  comparison  of 
himself  to  the  watchman  on  the  city  wall:  "As  for  thee,  O 
son  of  man,  I  have  made  thee  a  watchman  to  the  house  of 
Israel;  when  thou  nearest  a  word  from  my  mouth  thou  shalt 
warn  them.  When  I  say  to  the  wicked:  thou  shalt  surely 
die — then  if  thou  speak  not  to  the  wicked  to  warn  him  to 
turn  from  his  way,  he  shall  die  for  his  guilt,  but  I  will  hold 
thee  responsible.  But  if  thou  warn  the  wicked  to  turn  from 
his  way  and  he  turn  not,  he  shall  die  for  his  guilt,  but  thou 
hast  delivered  thyself"  (33  :  1-9). 

In  thus  preaching,  Ezekiel  takes  no  account  of  the  sinful 
habit  of  which  Jeremiah  had  so  clear  an  idea.  To  him  right- 
eousness consists  in  a  number  of  single  acts,  and  in  like 
manner  wickedness  consists  in  single  acts,  in  the  one  case 
of  obedience,  in  the  other  of  disobedience.  At  any  single 
moment  a  man  may  change  his  course  of  life,  the  righteous 
may  become  wicked,  and  the  wicked  may  become  righteous 
by  an  effort  of  the  will.  The  part  which  each  will  have  in 
the  chastisement  that  is  to  come  will  be  determined  by  the 
actions  in  which  he  is  engaged  at  the  time  (cf.  33 :  12  and  17). 
This  is  a  mechanical  theory,  but  probably  it  was  what  the 
contemporaries  of  the  prophet  needed.1  Their  temptation 
was  to  despair  because  of  their  belief  that  the  sins  of  the 
past  lay  heavy  upon  them :  "  Our  transgressions  and  our  sins 
are  upon  us  and  we  are  rotting  away  in  them"  (33  :  10). 
Encouragement  could  come  only  from  the  thought  that  each 
man  had  it  in  his  power  to  turn  and  do  right.  Ezekiel  was 

1  "He  states  the  doctrine  of  free-will  in  that  crude  and  exaggerated 
form  which  is  inevitable  with  ideas  that  are  still  new."  (Addis,  Hebrew 
Religion,  p.  224.) 


EZEKIEL  205 

not  altogether  consistent  in  carrying  out  his  theory,  for  after 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  he  saw  that  those  who  escaped  were 
not  such  as  he  had  classed  among  the  righteous.  He 
accounts  for  the  fact  by  supposing  that  Yahweh  had  spared 
these  to  show  the  exiles  what  kind  of  men  the  Jerusalemites 
were,  object-lessons  to  convince  them  that  the  punishment 
was  deserved  (14  :  21-23). 

The  faithful  who  respond  to  the  preaching  will  become 
the  seed  of  a  new  commonwealth,  in  which  Israel's  true 
ideal  will  be  reached.  Such  is  the  message  which  followed 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  The  end  is  to  be  accomplished  by 
an  act  of  God,  but  the  prophet  is  to  co-operate.  This  is 
the  meaning  of  the  vision  of  dry  bones.  The  bones  come 
together  by  divine  power,  but  they  do  so  when  the  word 
is  uttered  by  the  human  voice.  A  restoration  is  necessary 
for  the  vindication  of  Yahweh  himself.  He  could  not  leave 
the  heathen  to  believe  that  he  had  not  been  strong  enough 
to  protect  his  own.  The  banishment  of  Israel  caused  the 
gentiles  to  scoff:  "These  are  the  people  of  Yahweh,  yet 
were  forced  out  of  his  land!  Then  I  took  pity  on  my  sa- 
cred name  which  the  house  of  Israel  had  [thus]  caused  to 
be  profaned  among  the  gentiles  whither  they  went.  Say 
to  the  house  of  Israel:  Not  for  your  sakes  do  I  act,  but 
for  my  sacred  name  which  you  have  profaned  among  the 
nations  to  whom  you  are  come.  I  will  make  sacred  my 
name  which  is  become  profane  among  the  nations,  and  the 
nations  shall  learn  that  I  am  Yahweh  when  through  you 
I  manifest  my  sanctity  in  their  sight.  I  will  take  you  from 
all  lands  and  bring  you  into  your  own  land;  I  will  sprinkle 
pure  water  upon  you  and  you  shall  be  clean  from  all  your 
impurities;  from  all  your  idols  I  will  cleanse  you;  I  will 
take  the  heart  of  stone  out  of  your  bosom  and  give  you  a 
heart  of  flesh;  my  own  spirit  I  will  put  within  you;  I  will 
cause  you  to  follow  my  statutes  and  to  observe  my  ordi- 
nances; you  shall  dwell  in  the  land  which  I  gave  your  fathers; 
you  shall  be  my  people  and  I  will  be  your  God"  (36  :  20-28). 
This  detailed  statement  may  be  paralleled  from  several 


206  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

other  discourses.  The  root  idea  is  that  of  sanctity  as  we 
have  already  defined  it — that  mysterious  attribute  which 
separates  Yahweh  from  the  world  of  common  things — his 
divinity.  This  will  be  made  known  by  his  action  on  be- 
half of  Israel,  so  that  all  the  world  shall  see  his  power.  This, 
we  may  say,  is  the  external  aspect  of  the  restoration.  The 
internal  is  the  renewal  of  the  covenant  by  an  act  of  free 
grace.  Israel  will  be  chosen  anew  and  regenerated  by  such 
an  influence  as  will  make  them  obedient  to  Yahweh.  The 
complaint  of  the  earlier  prophets  had  been  that  the  people 
were  too  stupid  to  understand  the  ways  of  God.  This  is 
what  is  meant  by  the  heart  of  stone,  for  the  heart  is  to 
the  Hebrew  thinker  the  seat  of  the  intellect.  This  will  all 
be  changed;  the  new  Israel  will  understand  and  will  desire 
to  obey  the  commandments  which  give  life.  This  ideal 
will  be  reached  and  applied  not  to  Judah  alone  but  also  to 
the  exiled  northern  kingdom;  even  Sodom  will  not  be  shut 
out,  for  it  also  is  a  part  of  Yahweh 's  domain  (16  :  53). 

The  nations,  however,  are  not  to  share  in  the  new  king- 
dom. They  must  be  punished  in  order  to  vindicate  the 
reputation  of  Yahweh  and  because  of  their  attitude  toward 
Israel.  To  prevent  aggressions  such  as  Israel  had  too  often 
suffered  from  in  the  past,  also,  they  must  receive  an  exem- 
plary lesson:  "Of  all  the  malignant  neighbours  of  Israel, 
not  one  shall  be  any  longer  to  them  a  pricking  brier  or  a 
piercing  thorn;  they  shall  learn  that  I  am  Yahweh"  (28  :  24). 
Specific  denunciation  of  these  neighbours — Ammon,  Moab, 
Edom,  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  Egypt — are  therefore  included  in 
Ezekiel's  book.  Their  humiliation  will  both  vindicate  Yah- 
weh's  power  and  secure  Israel  in  undisturbed  possession  of 
its  land  for  all  the  future.  But  the  most  signal  vindication 
of  Yahweh,  and  at  the  same  time  the  best  pledge  of  future 
security,  will  come  through  the  destruction  of  Gog.  In  the 
earlier  time  the  prophets  had  described  the  invasion  of  Pal- 
estine by  a  cruel  and  relentless  enemy.  Isaiah  had  seen 
that  the  oppressor  of  Israel,  though  acting  as  Yahweh's 
instrument,  would  have  to  be  punished  for  the  arrogance 


EZEKIEL  207 

with  which  it  had  carried  out  its  mission.  When  this  antic- 
ipation had  been  fulfilled  by  the  downfall  of  Assyria  new 
foes  had  come  upon  the  scene.  We  have  read  how  Jere- 
miah was  shaken  to  the  inmost  soul  by  the  Scythian  irrup- 
tion. What  would  happen  if  Israel  were  restored  to  its  own 
land  and  a  new  invasion  should  come  upon  them  from  those 
obscure  northern  regions  which  had  vomited  forth  these 
barbarian  hordes?  To  answer  this  question  Ezekiel  shows 
us  the  foes  again  brought  on  his  land  by  Yahweh,  this  time 
not  to  ravage  it  but  to  meet  their  doom.  By  an  act  of 
God  and  without  human  intervention  they  will  be  exter- 
minated, and  with  them  all  danger  for  the  future  will  dis- 
appear. The  nations  will  thus  finally  be  convinced  that 
Israel  went  into  captivity  for  their  sins,  and  the  true  glory 
of  Yahweh  will  be  revealed  (39  :  21/.). 

To  our  prophet  the  crowning  event  of  the  world's  history 
will  be  the  return  of  Yahweh  to  his  temple,  which  will  take 
place  after  the  restoration  of  the  people  to  their  own  land. 
The  importance  of  the  event  may  be  measured  by  the  par- 
ticularity with  which  the  restored  temple  is  described,  and 
the  care  taken  to  regulate  all  that  belongs  to  it.  The  de- 
scription which  fills  the  last  nine  chapters  of  the  book  is 
called  a  vision,  but  it  bears  all  the  marks  of  an  elaborately 
thought-out  plan.  It  shows  us  the  logical  development  (in 
material  form)  of  the  priestly  ideal.  According  to  this  ideal 
Israel  existed  in  order  to  guard  the  residence  of  Yahweh  so 
carefully  that  his  sanctity  will  not  be  invaded.  As  the  in- 
trusion of  things  repulsive  to  him  had  been  the  cause  of 
Israel's  misfortunes  in  the  past,  so  in  the  future  Israel's 
welfare  and  the  peace  of  the  world  will  result  from  this 
effective  guardianship  of  the  sanctuary  from  pollution.  To 
suppose  that  this  end  would  not  be  secured  would  be  to 
suppose  that  the  restoration  would  fail  of  its  object. 

In  the  good  time  to  come  the  centre  of  the  land  will  be 
the  temple.  It  will  be  erected  on  a  very  high  mountain 
and  by  its  form,  as  well  as  by  its  situation,  it  will  declare 
the  inviolability  of  Yahweh.  Jerusalem,  being  situated  at 


208  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  centre  of  the  earth,  is  the  appropriate  place  for  the  sanc- 
tuary, and  it  will  be  guarded  by  Yahweh's  own  people 
dwelling  about  it.  The  transjordanic  territory  is  to  be  aban- 
doned and  all  Israel  is  to  dwell  in  Canaan,  properly  so  called. 
The  Dead  Sea  is  to  be  made  sweet  by  the  waters  flowing 
from  the  temple  spring  and  all  the  land  will  enjoy  abundant 
fruitfulness.  The  tribes  will  be  settled,  seven  to  the  north 
and  five  to  the  south  of  the  temple  in  such  order  as  to  break 
up  the  old  jealousies.  The  temple  is  to  be  separated  from 
the  city  of  Jerusalem,  that  there  may  be  less  danger  of  de- 
filement and  is  to  be  further  protected  by  a  sacred  tract  of 
land  in  which  the  priests  dwell. 

The  temple  itself  is  planned  after  the  scheme  of  the  one 
destroyed  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  even  the  ornaments  of  palm- 
trees  and  cherubim  being  retained.  Two  courts,  however, 
are  to  surround  it,  to  secure  more  thorough  separation  from 
common  things.  The  service  is  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
old  priestly  family  of  Zadok  (appointed  by  David  and  con- 
firmed by  Solomon),  to  whom  the  Levites  are  to  be  subor- 
dinate. This  is  in  deliberate  contradiction  with  earlier 
practice,  as  Ezekiel  himself  tells  us.  Before  the  exile  the 
menial  work  of  the  sanctuary  had  been  performed  by  slaves 
given  to  the  temple  by  the  kings.  These  were  foreigners 
uncircumcised  in  flesh  and  in  heart  as  the  prophet  complains. 
The  new  temple  is  to  have  in  their  place  the  Levites,  that 
is,  priests  of  the  old  country  sanctuaries.  By  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  sanctuaries  in  the  days  of  Josiah  these  had  been 
deprived  of  their  means  of  support,  and,  although  the  Deu- 
teronomist  ordained  that  they  should  have  a  place  in  the 
Jerusalem  temple,  they  had  not  been  able  to  make  good  their 
claim  in  face  of  the  Zadokites  who  were  already  in  posses- 
sion. They  had  become  hangers-on  of  the  sacred  place, 
thankful  to  get  a  morsel  of  bread  by  performing  menial 
service.  This  arrangement,  which  was  apparently  in  effect 
before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  is  now  distinctly  legitimated 
by  Ezekiel.  Its  advantage  was  that  it  provided  conse- 
crated persons  for  all  the  offices  and  definitely  allowed  the 


EZEKIEL  209 

exclusion  of  laymen  from  the  sacred  precincts.  Even  the 
prince  is  not  to  enter  the  inner  court,  but  is  to  stand  in  the 
east  gate  when  his  sacrifice  is  offered  (46  :  2). 

The  commonwealth  will  have  little  need  of  a  secular  ruler, 
and  the  prince  is  altogether  secondary  to  the  priesthood. 
The  early  experience  of  Judah  with  the  monarchy  had  not 
been  such  as  to  encourage  hope  in  a  king.  The  few  refer- 
ences to  a  new  David  show  that  Ezekiel  did  not  care  to 
make  him  prominent,  and  the  prince  of  whom  he  speaks 
is  to  be  only  the  collector  of  taxes  for  the  temple  service, 
not  for  himself  or  his  household  (45  :  13-17;  46  :  16-18). 
The  prosperity  of  the  people  depends  upon  the  priests,  and 
exact  regulations  are  laid  down  by  which  they  must  pre- 
serve their  ritual  cleanliness.  Doubtless  these  regulations 
concerning  clothing,  marriage,  and  the  observance  of  mourn- 
ing are  drawn  from  tradition,  but  we  may  suppose  that  the 
codification  was  intended  to  give  them  new  importance. 
The  chief  duty  of  the  priests  is,  of  course,  to  offer  sacrifice, 
though  the  work  of  instructing  the  people  in  matters  sacred 
and  profane  is  still  theirs  (44  :  23/.). 

Not  only  is  the  personnel  of  the  temple  thus  exactly  regu- 
lated; the  services  are  brought  into  a  system  with  special 
reference  to  this  same  matter  of  pollution  and  its  avoidance. 
In  the  old  days  the  primary  purpose  of  sacrifice  had  been  to 
gratify  Yahweh  by  a  gift,  or  else  to  enter  into  communion 
with  him.  The  festivals  were  occasions  for  eating  and 
drinking  and  rejoicing  before  Yahweh.  This  old  joyous 
ritual  is  now  replaced  by  a  series  of  rites  designed  to  preserve 
the  purity  of  people,  land,  and  sanctuary.  It  was  traditional 
custom,  no  doubt,  to  apply  sacrificial  blood  to  a  person  or 
thing  which  had  become  ceremonially  defiled,  in  order  to 
remove  the  taboo.  Ezekiel  makes  use  of  this  same  means 
to  consecrate  the  building  and  its  utensils,  and  provides  that 
the  consecration  shall  be  renewed  at  stated  intervals.  His 
thought  is  that  in  a  world  full  of  unclean  things  the  temple 
may  contract  defilement  in  spite  of  the  most  scrupulous  care. 
The  whole  sanctuary  is  to  be  reconsecrated  twice  a  vear 


210  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

(45  :  18-20).  This  is  expressly  said  to  be  on  account  of  any 
one  who  has  erred  or  is  dull  of  understanding,  and  it  is  in 
accordance  with  the  view  later  carried  through  in  the  Law, 
namely,  that  wilful  transgression  must  be  punished,  but  that 
unwitting  trespass  causes  defilement  and  must  be  purged 
away.  And  since  defilement  is  contagious,  even  the  sanc- 
tuary and  its  utensils  may  become  polluted  through  the 
ignorance  of  the  worshipper.  The  sacrifices  which  are  per- 
formed in  order  to  secure  the  purifying  blood  are  called  sin- 
offerings.  But  the  purpose  of  all  the  sacrifices  is  now  sup- 
posed to  be  purification,  as  we  see  from  a  passage  which  in 
our  version  says  that  the  prince  shall  provide  the  sin-offer- 
ing, and  the  meal-offering,  and  the  burnt  offering,  and  the 
peace-offering  "to  make  atonement"  for  the  house  of  Israel 
(45  :  17).  It  would  probably  better  represent  the  original 
idea  to  render  "to  purify  the  house  of  Israel,"  since  the  idea 
of  atonement  in  the  theological  sense  does  not  seem  to  be 
found  in  the  Old  Testament,  at  least  not  in  connection  with 
the  sacrifices. 

By  this  programme  the  ritual  side  of  religion  triumphed. 
Ezekiel  completes  the  process  begun  by  Deuteronomy,  and 
the  result  is  to  reverse  the  teachings  of  the  prophets.  Amos 
declared  Yahweh's  scorn  for  offerings,  sacrifices,  and  the 
festivals;  Isaiah  is  equally  emphatic  in  his  condemnation; 
Jeremiah  denied  that  Yahweh  had  given  a  law  concerning 
ritual.  Ezekiel,  with  sublime  indifference  to  these  declara- 
tions, makes  ritual  Yahweh 's  first  concern.  Ecclesiasticism 
has  triumphed  and  will  increasingly  dominate  Jewish  thought. 


CHAPTER  XII 
LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT 

BY  putting  religion  into  legal  form  Ezekiel  protected  it 
from  a  disintegrating  syncretism.  On  the  other  hand,  legal- 
ism  is  always  in  danger  of  degenerating  into  formalism.  It 
is  easy  for  us  to  exaggerate  this  danger  and  to  underrate  the 
advantages  of  a  rigid  code.  The  imageless  worship  of 
Yahweh  was  more  elevated  than  the  idolatry  to  which  the 
whole  gentile  world  was  addicted.  Humanly  speaking,  it 
could  not  have  been  preserved  pure  unless  it  had  been 
guarded  by  ritual  barriers.  The  terrible  earnestness  with 
which  the  prophet  sought  to  exclude  everything  unclean 
from  the  sanctuary  communicated  itself  to  the  Jewish  com- 
munity. The  fact  that  the  exiles  were  shut  out  from  par- 
ticipation in  civil  affairs  made  them  all  the  more  devoted  to 
matters  of  religion. 

The  rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of 
Darius  was  doubtless  inspired  by  the  Messianic  hope.  The 
disappointment  which  followed  seemed  to  indicate  that  not 
enough  care  had  been  taken  to  separate  the  clean  from  the 
unclean.  Those  who  clung  to  their  faith  in  Yahweh  as  the 
only  God  could  imagine  no  other  reason  for  his  delay  to 
reveal  himself.  Hence  came  the  anxious  inquiry  for  ritual 
tradition,  and  a  persistent  effort  to  put  that  tradition  into 
written  form.  Ritual  is,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  capable 
of  indefinite  expansion.  Deuteronomy,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  comparatively  few  priestly  regulations;  Ezekiel  added 
to  the  number;  the  guild  of  scribes  who  came  after  him  car- 
ried on  the  process.  Apparently  the  exiles  who  lived  at  a 
distance  from  the  temple  were  more  zealous  in  this  work 

211 


212  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

than  were  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem.  The  very  fact  that 
the  ritual  could  not  be  carried  out  by  those  in  exile  made  it 
easier  for  them  to  develop  its  theory.  Evidence  of  their 
state  of  mind  is  given  by  the  Talmud,  which  formulates  the 
most  elaborate  rules  for  ceremonies  though  these  have  not 
been  observed  for  eighteen  centuries.  The  underlying 
thought  is,  of  course,  that  when  the  kingdom  comes  every- 
thing necessary  for  a  complete  service  must  have  been  pro- 
vided for. 

For  two  centuries  or  more  after  Ezekiel  the  industry  of 
the  scribes  spent  itself  in  the  collection  of  ritual  traditions. 
The  result  was  the  elaborate  code  contained  in  the  middle 
books  of  the  Pentateuch.  It  is  now  almost  impossible  to  dis- 
entangle the  many  strands  which  have  here  been  interwoven. 
Some  of  the  material  is  doubtless  ancient,  representing 
customs  in  vogue  at  Israelite  sanctuaries  before  the  Deutero- 
nomic  reform.  But  whatever  its  source,  all  of  it  has  been 
brought  under  Ezekiel's  point  of  view.  One  body  of  laws 
has,  in  fact,  been  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  Ezekiel,  though 
the  evidence  is  not  convincing.  This  is  the  so-called  Holiness 
code,  which  avows  its  design  to  protect  the  sanctity  of 
Yahweh.  Its  watchword  is:  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy" 
(Lev.  19  :  2).  We  have  already  discovered  the  inadequacy 
of  this  translation.  It  would  be  more  in  accordance  with 
the  author's  idea  to  read:  "Be  ye  separate  from  all  that  is 
profane  because  I  am  thus  separate."  This  code  (Lev.  17- 
26)  occupies  a  position  intermediate  between  Ezekiel  and 
the  fully  developed  priestly  system.  The  author  uses  many 
of  Ezekiel's  phrases  and  may  be  called  a  disciple  of  the 
prophet.  If  we  may  judge  from  the  concluding  exhortation 
of  his  book,  he  himself  lived  in  exile,  for  this  section  regards 
dispersion  among  the  gentiles  as  the  supreme  misfortune, 
and  it  shows  the  hope  of  the  exiles  by  the  promise  that  if  they 
repent  Yahweh  will  remember  his  covenant  with  the  fathers 
and  again  be  their  God. 

The  scrupulosity  of  this  writer  is  shown  by  his  inclusion  in 
his  code  of  many  things  not  mentioned  in  Deuteronomy. 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  213 

He  reveals  the  power  of  the  antique  way  of  thinking,  accord- 
ing to  which  all  the  more  unusual  processes  of  life  are  under 
the  control  of  supernatural  powers.  These  powers  are  no 
longer  regarded  as  gods,  yet  they  have  a  real  existence,  and 
must  be  conciliated  or  warded  off.  Diseases  are  inflicted 
not  directly  by  Yahweh  but  by  the  demons.  These  demons 
are  taboo  to  the  worshipper  of  Yahweh;  hence  the  person 
afflicted  by  the  disease  is  unclean,  and  must  be  shut  out  of 
the  community.  For  uncleanness  is  contagious,  and  the 
presence  of  the  sick  man  in  the  camp  (which  here  doubtless 
stands  for  the  sacred  city)  is  a  source  of  danger.  The  code 
therefore  attempts  to  guard  the  community  by  shutting  the 
leper  out  of  its  bounds,  and  by  providing  an  elaborate  rite 
of  purification  before  he  can  be  readmitted  to  the  sanctuary. 

I  have  used  the  leper  as  an  illustration  because  the  law 
concerning  him  shows  most  clearly  the  point  of  view  of  this 
whole  school.  The  regulations  concerning  the  leper  seem  to 
belong  to  one  of  the  later  strata  of  the  Pentateuch,  but  other 
cases  of  defilement  are  treated  in  the  Holiness  code.  Most 
surprising  to  us  are  the  laws  concerning  the  sexual  life,  es- 
pecially concerning  childbirth.  Parallels  from  other  relig- 
ions show  that  there  was  a  wide-spread  belief  that  the  birth 
of  a  child  is  under  the  influence  of  a  demon  (originally  a 
divinity)  of  reproduction.  The  child  and  mother  are  there- 
fore unclean  after  the  birth,  and  there  must  be  an  elaborate 
purification  after  the  forty  or  eighty  days  of  separation.  It 
would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Hebrew  writers 
regard  the  sexual  life  as  sinful  in  our  sense  of  the  word. 
There  is  no  trace  of  asceticism  in  the  Old  Testament.  Mar- 
riage is  incumbent  on  all,  and  the  birth  of  a  son  is  a  sign  of 
the  grace  of  Yahweh.  The  treatment  of  the  young  mother 
as  unclean  is  therefore  a  survival  from  early  beliefs  or  usages. 

From  the  same  point  of  view  we  must  judge  the  elaborate 
prohibitions  of  marriage  within  certain  degrees  of  kinship. 
These  are  uttered  in  conscious  opposition  to  foreign  religious 
practice.  The  text  intimates  as  much:  "After  the  doings 
of  the  land  of  Egypt  wherein  you  have  dwelt  you  shall  not 


214  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

do,  and  after  the  doings  of  the  land  of  Canaan  whither  I 
bring  you  you  shall  not  do,  neither  shall  you  walk  in  their 
statutes"  (Lev.  18  :  3).  This  sentence  prefaces  the  pro- 
hibitions of  which  I  have  spoken.  The  inference  is  plain — 
that  in  these  countries  marriages  within  the  kin  were  allowed 
or  encouraged  from  alleged  religious  motives.  Ezekiel  says 
plainly  that  sexual  license  was  common  in  Jerusalem  before 
the  fall  of  the  city  (Ezek.  22  :  10/.).  Probably  the  worship 
of  a  foreign  or  old  Canaanite  god  of  fruitfulness  was  respon- 
sible for  these  abuses,  and  the  reason  for  the  prohibitions  of 
our  code  is  the  acute  reaction  of  the  religion  of  Yahweh 
against  foreign  custom.  This  accounts  for  the  mention  of 
child  sacrifice  in  connection  with  these  sexual  offences;  it 
was  regarded  as  Canaanitish  in  origin.  The  author  takes 
pains  to  emphasise  his  view  at  the  close  of  the  chapter,  when 
he  says  that  the  land  is  defiled  by  all  these  things  (Lev. 
18  :  24-30). 

As  in  the  case  of  Ezekiel,  all  sins  are  judged  from  the  rit- 
ual point  of  view.  Hence  the  incongruous  grouping  together 
of  such  things  as  cutting  one's  hair  or  beard,  tattooing  the 
person,  eating  with  the  blood  in  one  class,  and  prostituting 
one's  daughter,  oppression  of  the  client,  and  the  use  of  false 
weights  and  measures  in  the  other.  And  in  the  same  para- 
graph we  find  positive  commands  to  observe  the  Sabbath, 
to  show  reverence  to  old  age,  to  love  the  client  as  one's  self  „ 
(Lev.  19  :  26-36).  From  Deuteronomy  are  repeated  the 
prohibitions  of  sowing  two  kinds  of  seed  in  one  field  and 
of  wearing  cloth  in  which  two  kinds  of  thread  are  woven 
together  (19  : 19).  We  are  not  able  to  point  out  in  every/ 
case  the  exact  heathen  superstition  against  which  the  pro- 
hibition is  directed,  but  the  probability  is  that  such  a  super- 
stition existed.  There  is  evidence,  for  example,  that  in  some 
cases  heathen  diviners  wore  a  garment  in  which  wool  and 
cotton  were  woven  together.1  The  scrupulosity  of  the  Holi- 
ness code  is  manifest  when  it  makes  the  touch  of  an  un- 
clean animal  a  source  of  defilement  (Lev.  11  :  43). 

^oldziher,  Zeitschr.  d.  alttest.  Wissenschaft,  XX,  pp.  36 /. 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  215 

Since  Yahweh  has  separated  the  people  from  all  mankind 
to  be  his  consecrated  ones,  the  obligation  to  purity  rests 
upon  every  Israelite.  But  there  are  degrees  of  purity,  and 
the  priests  who  come  into  the  immediate  presence  of  the 
divinity  must  exercise  more  care  than  the  layman  who 
stands  at  a  greater  distance.  Hence  the  legislation  for  the 
priests,  which  follows  the  precedent  set  by  Ezekiel.  Bodily 
blemishes  shut  a  man  out  from  active  service,  though  not 
from  sharing  the  sacred  food  (Lev.  21  :  16-18).  Mourning 
rites  defile  the  mourner,  as  we  have  seen.  The  demand  of 
bereaved  nature,  however,  is  too  insistent  to  be  altogether 
ignored.  Hence  the  concession,  according  to  which  the  priest 
may  express  his  grief  for  father,  mother,  son,  daughter, 
brother,  or  unmarried  sister  (vss.  1-4).  Even  for  these 
there  must  be  no  shaving  of  the  head  or  making  marks  in 
the  flesh,  these  acts  being  connected  with  the  worship  of  the 
manes.  The  high  priest  now  appears  distinctly  as  the  cul- 
mination of  the  sacred  caste,  in  whom  therefore  separation 
from  the  common  must  be  most  complete.  He  must  not 
rend  his  clothes,  must  not  approach  any  corpse,  and  must 
not  observe  any  of  the  conventional  signs  of  grief  even  for 
his  father  or  his  mother  (21  :  10-15).  The  code  seems  to 
prohibit  his  leaving  the  sanctuary  at  all,  lest  his  sanctity 
be  contaminated  (vs.  12),  but  in  practice  this  was  not  en- 
forced. The  severity  of  the  law  is  seen  in  the  enactment 
that  any  Israelite  who  approaches  the  sacred  things  in  a 
state  of  defilement  shall  be  cut  off  from  his  people  (22  :  3). 

The  way  in  which  ancient  custom  is  adopted  in  this  legis- 
lation is  illustrated  by  the  treatment  of  a  newly-planted 
vineyard  or  orchard.  For  three  years  the  fruit  must  be  re- 
garded as  unclean;  the  fourth  year  it  is  all  consecrated  to 
Yahweh;  after  this  it  becomes  the  property  of  the  owner. 
The  evident  reason  for  the  law  is  that  originally  the  first 
three  years,  or  perhaps  the  first  four  years,  were  sacred  to 
the  local  Baal,  that  is,  it  was  taboo  to  man.  In  this  legis- 
lation the  taboo  is  recognised  as  uncleanness,  and  the  special 
act  of  consecration  to  Yahweh  in  the  fourth  year  is  designed 


216  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

to  remove  the  taboo  and  make  the  fruit  safe  for  men  to 
enjoy  (19  :  23-25).  Among  the  Bedawin  at  the  present  day, 
the  first  milk  yielded  by  a  domestic  animal  is  regarded  as 
sacred. 

We  saw  that  Ezekiel  practically  abolished  the  old  joyous 
festivals  and  substituted  an  exactly  regulated  series  of  ob- 
servances under  the  strict  supervision  of  the  priests.  The 
Priestcode  in  like  manner  codifies  the  regulations  concern- 
ing festivals  and  sacrifices.  Four  stages  of  ritual  are  trace- 
able in  the  order,  Deuteronomy,  Ezekiel,  Holiness  code, 
and  Priestcode  proper.  To  the  last  stage  we  may  now 
give  some  attention.  It  is  distinguished  by  the  thorough 
way  in  which  it  transfers  the  ideal  church  from  the  future, 
where  Ezekiel  located  it,  to  the  past.  Ezekiel  saw  a  sanc- 
tuary in  the  middle  of  the  land  surrounded  by  a  priestly 
people  which  would  guard  it  from  pollution.  Yahweh  will 
here  take  up  his  abode  and  will  be  served  constantly  by  a 
duly  consecrated  body  of  priests  and  Levites.  Here  the 
sacrificial  service  will  secure  the  constant  presence  and  bless- 
ing of  the  divinity.  The  priestly  writer  believes  that  this 
ideal  had  once  been  realised.  This  was  during  the  wilder- 
ness wandering.  The  theory  is  in  flat  contradiction  to 
Ezekiel,  for  this  prophet  traced  Israel's  defection  back  to 
the  time  of  the  exodus.  But  there  was  another  tradition 
according  to  which  Israel  had  been  faithful  in  the  earliest 
period,  and  the  defection  had  come  only  after  the  entrance 
into  Canaan.  Upon  this  tradition  the  priestly  author  bases 
his  scheme.  According  to  his  account,  the  revelation  made 
to  Moses  on  the  Mount  was  a  command  to  make  a  sanctu- 
ary so  that  Yahweh  might  dwell  in  the  midst  of  his  people 
from  that  time  on.  The  earlier  narrative  gave  some  sort 
of  countenance  to  this  idea  by  its  mention  of  the  tent  of 
tryst.  But  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  simple 
oracle  tent,  of  which  Joshua  was  the  sole  minister  and  guard- 
ian, and  the  elaborate  tabernacle  whose  dimensions  and  ma- 
terials are  now  so  exactly  described  to  us,  and  to  which 
some  thousands  of  Levites  are  attached  as  its  servants. 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  217 

Moses*  forty  days  on  the  Mount  were  occupied  with 
study  of  the  plan  for  this  elaborate  and  costly  structure. 
The  plan  was  simply  that  familiar  to  us.  There  are  the 
two  chambers;  the  Most  Sacred,  in  which  Yahweh  himself 
dwells;  and  the  Sacred  antechamber  with  a  lamp-stand  and 
a  table  for  the  bread  of  the  presence.  Around  the  whole 
is  a  court  fenced  off  by  curtains  in  which  is  the  great  altar 
for  the  sacrifices  and  the  laver  for  priestly  ablutions.  The 
whole  is  the  shadow  of  Solomon's  temple  thrown  by  the 
imagination  of  the  writer  upon  the  background  of  the  desert. 
To  make  such  a  structure  plausible,  at  least  to  a  certain 
extent,  its  dimensions  are  reduced,  and  the  materials  are 
such  as  might  be  appropriate  for  a  portable  sanctuary.  At 
the  same  time,  concessions  to  historic  probability  are  not 
very  marked.  Gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  leather,  and 
brocade  are  lavished,  as  though  the  resources  of  an  empire 
were  at  the  disposition  of  the  wandering  clans  in  the  bar- 
ren south  country.  The  ideal  which  has  mastered  the 
writer  is  that  Israel  as  it  came  out  of  Egypt  was  already  the 
fully  fledged  nation  of  Solomon's  time — a  people  thoroughly 
unified — organised  under  Moses,  the  theocratic  ruler — mus- 
tering six  hundred  thousand  fighting  men  and  devoted  to 
the  ecclesiastical  ideal  of  postexilic  Judaism. 

Yahweh  has  brought  Israel  from  Egypt  that  he  may 
dwell  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  this  is  actually  accom- 
plished when,  after  the  completion  of  the  tabernacle,  the 
cloud  descends  and  rests  upon  it,  or  fills  it  (Num.  9  :  15-23). 
This  cloud  is  the  same  in  which  Yahweh  descended  upon 
Mount  Sinai,  and,  like  Ezekiel's  chariot,  it  is  made  of  flame. 
For  this  reason  Moses'  face  shone  when  he  had  been  in  the 
Presence  (Ex.  34  :  30-35).  The  special  place  of  Yahweh's 
presence  was  the  lid  of  the  ark,  which  now  receives  the 
name  kapporeth,  rendered  in  our  version  "mercy-seat,"  but 
which  probably  means  "place  of  purification,"  because  the 
purifying  blood  is  sprinkled  there  on  the  great  Day  of  Atone- 
ment. The  ark,  an  implement  taken  over  from  the  earlier 
narratives,  is  now  overlaid  with  gold  and  provided  with 


218  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  golden  lid  just  mentioned.  Here  Yahweh  promises  that 
he  will  meet  with  Moses  and  commune  with  him  (Ex.  25  :  22; 
Lev.  1:1;  Num.  7:89). 

The  sanctuary  thus  constructed  becomes  the  central  ob- 
ject of  the  camp.  Aaron  and  his  sons  guard  the  entrance, 
and  the  Levites  camp  about  it  "lest  wrath  come  upon  the 
congregation"  (Num.  1:52/.).  Ezekiel's  distinction  be- 
tween priests  and  Levites  is  thoroughly  carried  out. 
The  priests,  however,  are  Aaron  and  his  sons,  instead  of  the 
sons  of  Zadok.  The  exigencies  of  the  case  required  an  an- 
cestor of  the  clan  who  was  of  older  date  than  Zadok,  and 
Aaron,  already  known  to  tradition,  was  the  only  one  avail- 
able. The  gradation  in  the  priesthood  is  carried  one  step 
farther  than  in  Ezekiel,  for  Aaron  as  high  priest  is  sharply 
marked  off  from  his  sons  by  his  greater  sanctity.  In  him 
the  sacredness  of  the  whole  order  is  concentrated,  and  this 
is  so  powerful  that  his  intervention  with  the  incense  calms 
Yahweh's  anger  (Num.  17  :  11-15).  His  importance  is  in- 
dicated again  by  the  declaration  that  if  he  falls  short  of 
what  is  required  the  wrath  of  Yahweh  will  fall  upon  the 
whole  congregation  (Lev.  10  :  6). 

The  material  nature  of  the  sanctity  on  which  stress  is 
here  laid  is  shown  by  the  treatment  of  the  implements  of 
the  service.  Their  sacredness  is  so  great  and  so  deadly 
that,  if  they  are  not  carefully  wrapped  up  by  the  priests 
before  they  are  seen  by  the  Levites,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
carry  them  on  the  journey,  they  will  kill  even  these  conse- 
crated persons  (Num.  4  :  15;  cf.  vss.  18/.).  In  accordance 
with  this  is  the  sanctity  of  the  whole  camp  from  which  all 
unclean  persons  must  be  rigorously  shut  out  "lest  they 
defile  the  camp"  (Num.  5  :  1-4).  The  sanctity  of  the  di- 
vine name  is  such  that  the  blasphemer  must  be  put  to 
death  (Lev.  24  :  10-23).  The  danger  of  trespass  is  set  be- 
fore us  in  the  story  of  Nadab  and  Abihu,  who  are  slain  by 
fire  proceeding  from  Yahweh  because  they  offered  incense 
with  strange  fire  (Lev.  10  :  1-7).  In  what  their  offence 
consisted  is  not  made  clear  to  us,  and  it  is  possible  that 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  219 

the  story  is  based  on  the  attempt  of  some  irregular  priests 
to  arrogate  to  themselves  a  part  in  the  service.  The  au- 
thor's main  idea  is  that  any  infringement  of  the  sacred  Law, 
any  deviation  from  the  exact  ritual,  will  be  punished  by  an 
act  of  God. 

The  importance  of  sanctity  is  expressed  again  in  the  elab- 
orate rites  by  which  the  tent  and  altar  are  made  ready  for 
the  residence  of  Yahweh  (Lev.  8  :  10  jf.)  and  in  the  account 
of  the  consecration  of  the  priests.  Here  the  most  elaborate 
precautions  are  taken  to  remove  every  trace  of  defilement. 
The  priests  are  washed,  anointed,  invested  with  the  sacred 
garments;  a  sacrifice  is  offered  on  their  behalf,  blood  from 
the  altar  and  oil  are  sprinkled  on  the  priests  and  on  their 
garments.  Only  after  this  has  been  done  are  they  fit  to 
approach  the  altar  and  present  the  food  of  Yahweh.  No 
less  than  twenty-four  acts  are  performed  in  this  rite  of  con- 
secration (Ex.  29).  The  lamina  or  gold  plate  which  the 
high  priest  wears  bears  the  appropriate  inscription  "Sacred 
to  Yahweh,"  and  it  is  expressly  declared  that  by  wearing  it 
Aaron  takes  away  the  guilt  of  the  sacred  things  which  the 
people  consecrate  (Ex.  28  :  36-38).  The  meaning  is  that 
the  sacred  character  of  the  high  priest  counteracts  any  defect 
in  the  gifts  of  the  people.  The  danger  incident  to  the  priest's 
office  is  indicated  by  the  statement  that  if  they  do  not  wash 
their  hands  and  feet  before  approaching  the  altar  they  will 
die  (Ex.  30  :  21). 

The  exact  regulation  of  the  sacrificial  service  is  the  logical 
sequence  of  the  consecration  of  sanctuary  and  priests.  The 
daily  burnt  offering  is  the  condition  of  Yahweh's  dwelling 
among  his  people  (Ex.  29  :  38  and  45/.).  In  the  thought  of 
later  Judaism  the  suspension  of  this  recurring  expression  of 
loyalty  to  Yahweh  was  the  most  painful  feature  of  the  dese- 
cration of  the  temple  by  Antiochus.  The  whole  sacrificial 
ritual  is  defined  as  to  its  material,  the  method  of  slaying  the 
animal,  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  the  blood  and  flesh. 
The  four  kinds  of  sacrifice — burnt  offering,  peace-offering, 
sin-offering,  and  guilt-offering — are  described  (Lev.  1-7). 


220  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

Exact  measurements  are  given  for  the  meal-offering  and  the 
libation  (Num.  15  :  1-12).  The  number  of  victims  to  be 
brought  on  Sabbaths  and  festivals  is  specified  (Num.  28). 
To  one  of  these  authors  we  owe  the  exact  regulation  of  the 
Passover  (Ex.  12  :  1-20).  Nowhere  is  any  reflection  in- 
dulged in  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  elaborate  ritual — priestly 
tradition  gave  it  sanction  and  that  was  enough.  Some  of 
it,  as  I  have  said,  was  very  old,  and  the  original  point  of  view 
sometimes  comes  to  the  surface,  as  where  the  animal  is  said 
to  be  burned  as  a  fire  offering  of  fragrant  odour  to  Yahweh 
(Lev.  3  :  11),  or  where  even  more  distinctly,  not  to  say 
crassly,  it  is  said  to  be  the  food  of  Yahweh  (Num.  28  :  2; 
cf.  Ezek.  44  :  7). 

Characteristic  of  the  postexilic  point  of  view  is  the  promi- 
nence now  given  to  the  sin-offering  and  the  guilt-offering. 
These  two  classes  are  rarely  mentioned  in  the  earlier  litera- 
ture. In  Ezekiel  they  become  important  because  of  his 
theory  of  sin,  a  theory  which  was  fully  developed  by  the 
priestly  writers.  According  to  this  view  sin  is  anything  that 
offends  the  sanctity  of  Yahweh.  The  Law  attempts  to  define 
what  these  things  are,  but  in  making  the  attempt  it  has 
become  so  elaborate  that  one  may  often  be  in  doubt  whether 
he  is  a  transgressor  or  not.  One  may  easily  sin  in  ignorance, 
by  coming  in  contact  with  an  unclean  animal  or  with  a 
person  suffering  some  sexual  defilement.  Unwitting  sin  is, 
however,  dangerous  to  the  person  affected  and  to  the  whole 
community,  for  the  sanctity  of  Yahweh  reacts  against  every 
defilement.  To  provide  against  this  danger  is  the  aim  of  the 
priestly  writers.  In  their  theory  transgression  of  the  Law  by 
a  person  who  knows  what  he  is  doing  must  be  punished  by 
death  or  excommunication.  "That  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from 
the  congregation"  is  their  declaration,  leaving  it  uncertain 
whether  he  will  be  visited  by  an  act  of  God,  or  put  to  death 
by  the  civil  authority,  or  excommunicated.  In  practice  ex- 
communication was  the  method  taken,  and  this  accomplished 
the  end  sought,  which  was  the  purification  of  the  congrega- 
tion from  contagion.  The  stringency  of  the  Law  is  shown 


LEGALISM   TRIUMPHANT  221 

by  the  number  of  offences  on  which  this  penalty  is  to  be 
inflicted. 

What  really  troubled  the  pious  observer  of  the  Law  was 
unwitting  violation  of  the  commandment.  Such  "sins" 
could  not  be  punished  by  the  community,  but  they  were  sure 
to  bring  down  the  wrath  of  Yahweh.  To  meet  this  danger 
the  purifications  were  ordained,  and  the  purifications  were 
effected  by  the  sin-offering  and  the  guilt-offering.  Thus  a 
man  who  discovered  that  he  had  unwittingly  contracted  de- 
filement, or  who  even  suspected  that  he  had,  could  always 
find  relief  by  bringing  one  of  these  offerings.  Whatever 
atonement  they  effected  extended  only  to  this  class  of 
offences.  The  limits  of  witting  and  unwitting,  however,  are 
so  drawn  as  to  make  the  latter  class  as  large  as  possible, 
and  this  is  an  intelligible  concession  to  human  weakness. 
The  law  of  the  guilt-offering  says:  "If  any  one  commit  a 
trespass  against  Yahweh,  and  deal  falsely  with  his  neighbour 
in  a  matter  of  deposit  or  of  bargain  or  of  concealing  a  theft, 
or  of  taking  advantage  of  his  neighbour,  or  have  found  that 
which  was  lost  and  have  dealt  falsely  therein,  or  have  sworn 
to  a  lie  ...  then  he  shall  restore  that  which  he  took  wrong- 
fully adding  a  fifth  of  its  value  .  .  .  and  shall  bring  his  guilt- 
offering  to  Yahweh."  l  It  is  clear  if  this  definition  be  allowed 
that  a  wide  variety  of  offences  might  pass  for  unwitting,  and 
so  claim  the  benefit  of  the  law  of  purification. 

I  have  just  spoken  of  "whatever  atonement"  these  sac- 
rifices effected.  It  is  fair  to  notice  here  that  in  the  sin- 
offering  and  guilt-offering  there  is  no  idea  of  expiation  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  word  is  ordinarily  understood — that  is, 
the  victim  was  not  a  substitute  giving  his  life  for  the  life  of 
the  guilty  man.  The  emphasis  laid  upon  the  blood,  which 
is  often  interpreted  as  favouring  the  theory  of  substitution,  is 
due  to  quite  another  consideration.  By  ancient  tradition 
blood  is  sacred,  either  because  it  is  the  blood  of  an  animal 
dedicated  to  the  divinity,  and  so  partakes  of  his  sanctity, 
or  else  because  this  mysterious  fluid,  containing  the  life  of 
1  Lev.  5  :  20-26  in  the  Hebrew  (6  :  1-7  English). 


THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  animal,  has  in  it  intrinsically  something  supernatural. 
From  the  most  ancient  times  the  blood  had  been  the  portion 
of  the  sacrifice  which  was  too  sacred  to  be  appropriated  by 
man  and  which  must  be  carefully  presented  to  the  divinity. 
The  gift  was  grateful  to  him  and  made  the  offerer  acceptable. 
But  there  was  more  in  it  than  this:  the  blood  might  be  ap- 
plied to  anything  defiled  or  common  and  the  object  was 
thereby  consecrated.  This  is  seen  in  the  consecration  of 
the  priests  to  which  allusion  has  been  made.  By  its  blood 
the  sin-offering  effects  a  removal  of  pollution.  If  a  substitu- 
tionary  atonement  were  aimed  at  we  should  expect  the  flesh 
of  the  victim  to  become  taboo,  being  laden  with  the  sin  of 
the  offender  transferred  to  it.  But  we  are  distinctly  told 
that  the  flesh  of  the  sin-offering  is  most  sacred  (Lev.  6  :  18- 
22  and  7:1).  The  priests  are  strictly  commanded  to  eat 
this  flesh  in  the  sanctuary  (6  :  19;  7  :  5/.).  An  exception  is 
indeed  made  in  certain  cases  where  the  offering  is  brought 
on  behalf  of  the  priests  themselves.  Here  it  is  ordered  that 
the  flesh  shall  be  burned  outside  the  camp,  probably  because 
it  was  felt  to  be  unbecoming  for  the  priests  to  profit  by  their 
own  imperfections.  The  whole  treatment  of  the  subject 
shows  that  the  authors  were  not  interested  in  any  theological 
theory;  they  did  not  ask  themselves  why  the  sacrifices  took 
away  the  guilt.  Enough  for  them  that  the  blood  is  a  power- 
ful cleanser.  Moses  unsins  the  altar  by  sprinkling  the  blood 
of  Aaron's  sin-offering  on  it  (Lev.  8  :  15).  The  reason  why 
the  blood  was  not  in  ordinary  cases  sprinkled  on  the  sup- 
posed guilty  person  was  apparently  twofold;  for  one  thing, 
the  blood  was  too  powerful — if  sprinkled  on  the  person 
it  would  make  him  unfit  for  the  ordinary  duties  of  life; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  writers  of  these  regulations  were 
more  interested  in  keeping  the  sanctuary  clean  than  in  puri- 
fying the  persons  who  brought  the  sacrifice.  The  sacredness 
of  the  sacrifice  was  such  that  the  offerer  was  sufficiently 
cleansed  by  laying  his  hands  on  the  head  of  the  animal, 
whereas  the  altar,  which  possibly  had  been  defiled  by  the 
very  neglect  which  was  now  made  good,  needed  the  appli- 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  223 

cation  of  the  blood  to  keep  it  fit  for  the  service.  What  is 
certain  is  that  the  death  of  the  victim  is  nowhere  treated  as 
a  punishment,  and  there  is  no  intimation  that  the  victim 
takes  the  place  of  the  guilty  man. 

The  idea  of  purification  reaches  its  climax  in  the  ritual  of 
the  great  day  which  we  call  the  Day  of  Atonement  (Lev.  16). 
The  underlying  thought  is  that  the  sanctity  of  the  dwelling 
may  have  been  impaired  by  the  uncleanness  to  which  the 
people  were  so  liable.  This  sanctity  is  so  great  that  no  one 
must  enter  the  inner  chamber  except  the  high  priest,  and  he 
can  enter  only  on  this  one  day  in  the  year.  On  this  occasion 
he  must  take  special  precautions,  offering  a  sin-offering  and 
a  burnt  offering  for  himself  and  then  putting  on  vestments 
kept  for  this  occasion.  The  bells  on  the  skirt  of  his  robe 
notify  the  divinity  of  his  approach,  lest,  coming  unannounced, 
he  provoke  the  divine  anger.  In  entering  the  Presence  he 
is  to  carry  a  censer  with  burning  incense  so  that  the  cloud 
will  prevent  his  looking  directly  at  the  object  of  his  rever- 
ence, for  this  would  be  fatal.  After  purifying  himself  and  his 
household  by  this  first  sin-offering  he  is  to  cast  lots  on  two 
goats,  one  of  which  is  thus  assigned  to  Yahweh  and  the 
other  to  Azazel.  The  one  for  Yahweh  is  a  sin-offering  for 
the  people.  This  one  is  slain  and  the  blood  is  brought  into 
the  inner  sanctuary  and  sprinkled  both  on  the  cover  of  the 
ark  and  all  about  this  most  sacred  room  in  order  to  cleanse 
it  from  the  impurities  of  the  children  of  Israel.  In  the 
same  way  the  high  priest  is  to  "unsin"  the  altar  by  sprin- 
kling the  blood  upon  it  (16  :  15-18). 

The  account  makes  plain  the  purpose  of  the  sin-offering. 
The  sanctuary  in  the  course  of  the  year  may  have  been  de- 
filed by  some  of  those  unwitting  sins  to  which  every  man  is 
liable;  therefore  there  must  be  a  special  purification  reach- 
ing even  within  the  veil.  This  is  effected  by  sprinkling  the 
blood  of  this  sin-offering  in  the  most  sacred  place  and  also 
upon  the  altar.  The  further  ceremony  is  without  parallel 
in  Hebrew  religion,  unless  the  bird  set  free  at  the  cleansing 
of  the  leper  be  an  exception.  It  consists  in  loading  the 


224  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

other  goat  (scapegoat,  we  call  it  traditionally)  with  the  sins 
or  rather  with  the  impurities  of  the  people  and  sending  it 
thus  laden  into  the  wilderness.  According  to  Hebrew  tra- 
dition, though  this  is  not  directly  asserted  in  our  text,  the 
goat  was  taken  to  the  edge  of  a  precipice  and  thrown  down 
from  it.  Since  the  goat  is  distinctly  said  to  be  for  Azazel, 
and  since  in  postbiblical  documents  Azazel  is  known  to  be 
one  of  the  demons,  it  seems  clear  that  we  have  here  one  of 
the  ancient  sacrifices  to  these  uncanny  beings  elsewhere  so 
sternly  repressed.  The  rite  is  a  cathartic  one,  like  many 
which  we  meet  in  other  religions.  In  these  rites  sin  or  dis- 
ease or  impurity  is  transferred  to  an  object,  animate  or 
inanimate,  and  then  thrown  away  or  driven  out  of  the 
community. 

The  use  of  two  goats  in  this  ceremony  shows  plainly  enough 
the  twofold  aspect  of  the  idea  of  purification:  the  removal 
of  uncleanness  and  the  communication  of  sanctity.  This 
double-faced  idea  underlies  the  whole  Levitical  system^  The 
rite  of  circumcision  is  both  removal  of  impurity  and  conse- 
cration to  the  divinity.  >>  Its  importance  is  indicated  by  the 
penalty  of  death  or  excommunication  imposed  for  neglect  of 
the  rite.  The  Sabbath  is  a  sacred  day,  and  any  profanation 
of  it  is  punished  in  the  same  way  (Ex.  35  :  1-3).  This  is 
brought  out  by  an  anecdote  in  which  Yahweh  himself  de- 
crees the  death  of  a  man  for  the  comparatively  trifling  act 
of  gathering  sticks  on  that  day  (Num.  15  :  32-36).  The 
blasphemer  of  the  sacred  name  is  punished  in  the  same  way, 
and  it  is  apparent  from  the  anecdote  which  enforces  this 
lesson  that  it  is  wrong  to  mingle  the  sacred  Jewish  blood 
with  that  of  gentiles,  for  the  offender  in  this  case  was  son  of 
an  Israelite  mother  and  an  Egyptian  father  (Lev.  24  :  10-23). 
The  rite  of  cleansing  the  leper,  which  is  curiously  parallel 
to  the  consecration  of  the  priest,  shows  this  twofold  aspect. 
It  takes  pains  to  remove  the  taboo  of  the  disease,  and  at  the 
same  time  it  dedicates  the  convalescent  to  the  service  of 
Yahweh.  The  mechanical  nature  of  the  idea  of  defilement 
is  attested  by  the  treatment  of  a  house  infected  with  mould 


LEGALISM  TRIUMPHANT  225 

or  mildew.  It  is  pronounced  leprous  and  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  the  priest  just  like  the  human  leper. 

Other  enactments  of  this  literature  might  be  adduced, 
but  these  are  sufficient  to  show  the  motive  of  the  authors. 
The  very  punctiliousness  of  their  demands  shows  the  earnest- 
ness of  their  conviction.  To  them  Israel  was  no  longer  a 
nation  among  the  nations;  it  was  a  church  whose  first,  and 
one  might  say  whose  only,  duty  was  to  keep  itself  unspotted 
from  the  world.  While  the  temple  stood  and  the  rites  were 
duly  performed,  and  while  the  Jews  kept  themselves  free 
from  demonic  influences,  all  would  be  well.  Not  only  the 
prosperity  of  the  scattered  Jewish  communities  but  the  well- 
being  of  the  world  at  large  depended  on  the  observance  of 
the  Law.  The  danger  of  formalism  which  resulted  from  this 
emphasis  of  the  opus  operatum  is  obvious.  The  authors  of 
the  code  would  reply  to  our  objection:  "Formalism  or  no 
formalism,  we  are  bound  to  obey  the  divine  ordinances,  and 
this  is,  in  fact,  our  life."  Men  of  a  more  sophisticated  age 
may  easily  underestimate  the  amount  of  serious  religious 
purpose  which  finds  satisfaction  in  the  strict  observance  of 
such  a  ritualistic  system. 

It  is  easy  to  misunderstand  also  the  zeal  of  the  authors  for 
the  prerogatives  of  the  priesthood.  If  the  service  of  the 
temple  was  to  be  worthily  performed  the  ministers  of  the 
sanctuary  must  have  an  adequate  support.  It  was  not  alto- 
gether because  the  priestly  writers  were  themselves  priests 
(we  do  not  know  that  they  were)  that  they  made  such 
extravagant  demands  for  tithes  and  contributions.  If  the 
prosperity  of  the  race  depends  on  the  hierarchy,  it  is  a  small 
thing  for  the  laymen  to  provide  an  adequate  support  for  its 
members.  Deuteronomy  has  shown  us  that  in  the  early 
period  the  members  of  the  priestly  caste  were  reckoned 
among  the  poor  of  the  land,  dependent  upon  the  charity  of 
the  faithful.  Ezekiel  sanctioned  the  exclusion  of  all  laymen 
from  the  sanctuary,  and  at  the  same  time  provided  that  all 
the  offices  should  be  in  the  hands  of  consecrated  persons. 
The  Priestcode  assumes  that  Ezekiel's  arrangement  was  in 


226  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

effect  from  the  Mosaic  age,  and  takes  care  that  the  whole 
priestly  clan  shall  be  duly  supported.  First  of  all,  forty- 
eight  cities,  including  the  most  important  places  in  the  coun- 
try, are  set  apart  for  the  tribe  of  Levi — something  quite  con- 
tradictory to  the  declarations  of  earlier  authors  (some  of 
them  priestly  even),  according  to  which  Levi  was  not  to  re- 
ceive any  territory  (Num.  18  :  21-24).  Then  they  are  to 
have  a  tithe  of  the  gross  produce  of  the  land.  Of  this  the 
priests  are  to  have  a  tithe.  Considerable  portions  of  the 
offerings  also  go  to  the  priests,  and  this  is  doubtless  in  ac- 
cordance with  ancient  usage.  The  subject  is  of  subordinate 
interest  to  the  student  of  religion,  illustrating  as  it  does  only 
the  tendency  of  a  hierarchy  to  claim  more  and  more  for  it- 
self in  the  way  of  emoluments  and  in  the  way  of  dignity. 
The  climax  was  reached  in  the  Greek  period,  when  the  high 
priest  became  the  civil  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical  head  of 
the  community,  and  when  the  titles  of  king  and  high  priest 
were  given  to  the  same  person. 

The  separatism,  the  scrupulosity,  and  the  externalism  of 
the  Pharisees  developed  from  the  ideas  embodied  in  the 
Priestcode.  Fortunately  for  the  history  of  religion,  the  Priest- 
code  was  only  one  part  of  the  literature  of  Israel  in  this 
period.  Within  the  rigid  frame  provided  by  the  Law  there 
was  room  for  a  more  spiritual  and  vital  piety  than  that  of 
the  ritualists.  The  best  evidence  is  found  in  the  documents 
which  we  have  still  to  study. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS 

WE  have  seen  how  thoroughly  Ezekiel  taught  his  people 
to  misunderstand  their  own  history.  We  have  seen  also  how 
members  of  the  Deuteronomic  school  rewrote  the  earlier 
narrative  to  make  it  teach  Deuteronomic  lessons.  The 
priestly  writers  could  not  do  otherwise  than  carry  on  this 
process.  The  greatest  treasure  of  Israel  was  its  literature. 
But  the  lesson  taught  by  this  literature  must  be  made  plainer 
if  it  was  to  edify  a  generation  dominated  by  priestly  ideals. 
These  ideals  were  thoroughly  theocratic;  the  wilderness 
period  was  a  time  of  gracious  obedience,  because  Yahweh 
directly  controlled  his  people  by  the  mouth  of  Moses.  The 
record  of  Israel's  later  history  was  a  record  of  defection, 
partly  because  the  monarchy  was  a  human  institution,  not 
divinely  ordained  and  not  divinely  guided.  Hence  the  view 
of  the  later  strata  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  according  to  which 
the  demand  for  a  king  was  a  proof  of  the  depravity  of  the 
people,  and  a  rejection  of  Yahweh  himself.  In  this  same 
strand  of  the  narrative  Samuel  is  presented  as  the  theocratic 
ruler,  a  second  Moses,  who  has  only  to  pray  to  Yahweh  in 
order  to  secure  a  miraculous  deliverance  from  the  Philis- 
tines (I  Sam.  7  :  3-14).  That  this  is  not  history  needs  no 
demonstration. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  between  the  Deuter- 
onomic redaction  and  that  of  the  priestly  writers.  In  fact, 
the  point  of  view  of  the  two  schools  was  so  similar  that  it 
was  easy  for  the  later  to  expand  the  text  of  the  earlier. 
The  prayer  of  Solomon,  for  example,  is  Deuteronomic  in 
tone,  but  it  has  evidently  been  retouched  by  a  hand  which 

227 


228  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

we  may  properly  regard  as  that  of  a  priestly  writer.  Without 
attempting  to  point  this  out  in  detail  we,  may  notice  the  dis- 
tinctly priestly  document  which  underlies  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis and  the  earlier  chapters  of  Exodus.  We  have  already 
noticed  those  narrative  portions  of  these  books  which  belong 
respectively  to  the  Yahwistic  and  to  the  Elohistic  writer. 
When  these  narratives  are  dissected  out  we  have  left  what 
evidently  was  a  single  document,  mostly  genealogical  in 
nature,  which  belongs  to  the  priestly  school.  It  was  appar- 
ently composed  as  an  introduction  to  the  laws  contained  in 
Leviticus.  It  was  designed  also  to  replace  the  patriarchal 
stories  of  J  and  E,  which  from  the  later  point  of  view  were 
scarcely  edifying.  For  an  introduction  to  the  Law  it  was 
sufficient  to  give  an  outline  which  would  lead  the  reader 
rapidly  from  Adam  to  Abraham,  and  from  Abraham  to 
Moses,  without  dwelling  upon  these  unedifying  details. 

This  author  whom  we  will  call  P,  resembles  his  predecessor 
E  in  that  he  prefers  the  name  Elohim  for  God.  His  theology, 
however,  is  less  anthropomorphic  than  that  of  either  of  his 
forerunners.  This  comes  into  view  at  once  when  we  com- 
pare his  account  of  the  creation  (Gen.  1  : 1  to  2  :  4a)  with  that 
of  J.  He  makes  God  transcendent,  working  by  his  spirit 
and  word  alone.  The  divinity  no  longer  fashions  man  of 
clay,  and  he  does  not  find  it  necessary  to  experiment  with  the 
animals  before  deciding  to  make  woman  as  man's  fit  associate. 
We  hear  nothing  of  Yahweh's  walking  in  the  garden,  or  of 
his  cross-questioning  Adam  about  his  conduct.  The  local 
colour  has  disappeared;  there  is  no  serpent;  no  cherubim 
guard  the  paradise.  The  mythology  has  been  discarded, 
and  we  have  something  which  approaches  a  scientific  cos- 
mology. A  trace  of  anthropomorphism  survives  indeed  in 
the  statement  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  the  Creator, 
and  a  faint  echo  of  the  Babylonian  myth  is  heard  in  the 
word  tehom,  used  for  the  primeval  waters,  for  this  is  evi- 
dently the  Tiamat  of  Mesopotamian  cosmology.  But  these 
faint  survivals  show  how  thoroughly  the  mythological  stage 
of  thought  has  been  left  behind. 


THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  229 

It  is  possible  that  the  succession  of  works  of  creation  in 
this  account  has  been  borrowed  from  Babylonian  sources, 
for  Babylonian  science  was  in  high  repute  throughout  the 
empire  of  Xerxes.  But  if  so  the  arrangement  has  been 
subordinated  to  Jewish  conceptions,  for  the  compression  of 
these  successive  acts  into  the  six  days  of  the  creative  week 
is  plainly  dictated  by  the  Jewish  reverence  for  the  Sabbath. 
The  reason  for  the  sanctity  of  the  day  is  now  seen  to  be 
that  God  himself  rested  on  that  day  and  consecrated  it  as 
a  sacred  day.  The  correspondence  of  things  on  earth  and 
of  things  in  heaven  requires  that  the  day  be  observed  in 
both.  Later  Jewish  authors  carry  this  idea  of  correspon- 
dence so  far  as  to  require  the  angels  to  observe  all  the  Jew- 
ish festivals,  and  some  of  them  are  insistent  in  their  de- 
mand that  the  calendar  be  so  arranged  that  the  earthly 
festivals  shall  be  observed  at  the  proper  time,  since  other- 
wise the  discordance  would  interfere  with  the  divine  pur- 
pose. 

The  priestly  writer  bridges  over  the  period  between  Adam 
and  the  deluge  by  a  genealogy  in  which  he  records  the  age 
of  each  patriarch  at  the  birth  of  his  eldest  son.  The  inter- 
est of  this  table  is  plainly  chronological  and  the  explana- 
tion is  not  far  to  seek.  In  the  postexilic  period,  when  the 
new  era  was  ardently  hoped  for,  it  was  supposed  that  the 
duration  of  the  present  world  could  be  calculated  and 
the  time  of  the  consummation  of  all  things  could  thus  be 
foreseen.  The  world  was  to  exist  four  or  six  or  seven  thou- 
sand years,  or  as  many  periods,  which  could  be  discovered 
by  the  study  of  history.  Which  of  the  schemes  underlay 
this  author's  figures  he  does  not  tell  us.  Possibly  he  drew 
upon  Babylonian  tradition,  for  his  ten  antediluvian  patri- 
archs are  shadows  of  the  ten  kings  which  Babylonian  my- 
thology assigned  to  the  primeval  age. 

The  ordered  and  schematic  arrangement  of  this  author's 
creation  story  made  him,  in  a  sense,  the  first  of  the  evolu- 
tionists, and  his  theory  of  development  comes  to  view  in 
his  treatment  of  the  institutions  of  Israel.  The  Sabbath 


230  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

was  introduced  at  the  beginning;  at  the  deluge  the  prohi- 
bition of  blood  as  food  was  imposed;  at  the  birth  of  Isaac 
circumcision  was  commanded;  and  at  the  exodus  the  ob- 
servance of  the  Passover.  A  certain  amount  of  dependence 
on  tradition  dictated  this  order  in  the  narrative,  for  cir- 
cumcision antedated  Moses,  and  the  Yahwist  had  already 
brought  the  Passover  into  connection  with  the  exodus,  his 
view  being  also  adopted  by  the  Deuteronomist.  The  priestly 
writer  by  accenting  these  institutions  marked  off  four  periods 
of  the  world's  history,  beginning  respectively  with  Adam, 
Noah,  Abraham,  and  Moses.  The  Greeks  also  had  a 
scheme  of  four  ages,  as  we  know,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  the  Hebrew  thinker  was  influenced  by  Greek 
thought. 

It  is  not  accidental  that  Sabbath  and  circumcision  are 
singled  out  as  having  special  significance.  These  were  the 
two  institutions  which  the  Jews  could  observe  in  the  dis- 
persion and  which,  therefore,  most  distinctly  served  the 
purpose  of  a  test  for  the  faithful  observer  of  the  Law.  Our 
author  thinks  them  obligatory  not  on  the  Jews  alone.  In 
reference  to  the  Sabbath,  at  any  rate,  he  felt  authorised  to 
say:  "We  Jews  are  the  only  people  who  are  faithful  to  the 
divine  ordering."  How,  in  fact,  the  observance  of  a  day  of 
rest  was  introduced  into  Israel  is  still  unknown.  The  pre- 
exilic  references  to  it  seem  to  indicate  that  it  was  a  lunar 
festival.  In  Babylonia  the  seventh,  fourteenth,  and  twenty- 
first  days  of  each  month  were  regarded  as  days  of  ill  omen 
on  which,  therefore,  it  was  safer  not  to  undertake  any  work. 
It  is  difficult,  however,  to  see  how  this  monthly  scheme 
could  be  dissociated  from  the  phases  of  the  moon  so  as  to 
give  rise  to  the  Hebrew  series  of  seventh-day  observances 
independent  of  the  lunar  months.  But  the  importance  of 
the  number  seven  in  Hebrew  thought  is  evident  from  the 
documents  in  our  hands.  It  might  well  be  that  the  idea 
of  consecrating  one  day  in  seven  by  abstaining  from  labour 
arose  without  direct  connection  with  the  moon.  The  thought 
would  be  the  same  which  we  find  in  the  so-called  sabbatical 


THE  DOGMATIC   BIAS  231 

year,  one  year  in  seven,  in  which  the  land  was  allowed  to 
lie  fallow  as  a  tribute  to  Yahweh,  the  Lord  of  the  soil. 

The  difference  between  the  Deuteronomic  and  the  priestly 
point  of  view  is  shown  by  the  treatment  of  the  Sabbath  in 
their  respective  decalogues.  The  Deuteronomist,  with  his 
characteristic  humanitarianism,  insists  upon  the  day  of  rest 
as  a  boon  to  the  slave  and  the  hireling:  "Thou  shalt  remem- 
ber that  thou  wast  a  slave  in  the  land  of  Egypt  and  Yah- 
weh thy  God  brought  thee  out  thence  by  a  mighty  hand 
and  by  an  outstretched  arm;  therefore  Yahweh  thy  God 
commands  thee  to  keep  the  sabbath"  (Deut.  5:15).  The 
priestly  writer  in  adopting  the  Decalogue  changes  the  rea- 
son for  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  and  inserts  his  pre- 
conceived notion  that  it  was  consecrated  by  Yahweh  him- 
self: "For  in  six  days  Yahweh  made  heaven  and  earth,  the 
sea  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh  day; 
wherefore  Yahweh  blessed  the  sabbath  and  hallowed  it" 
(Ex.  20  : 11).  The  difference  is  enormous — the  humanitarian 
institution  has  become  something  imposed  by  divine  com- 
mand and  binding  for  that  reason.  As  a  sacred  thing  it 
marks  Israel  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world:  "You  shall 
keep  my  sabbaths,  for  this  is  a  sign  between  me  and  you 
throughout  your  generations,  that  you  may  know  that  it 
is  I,  Yahweh,  who  consecrate  you"  (Ex.  31  :  13).  The  full 
stringency  of  the  command  comes  out  in  the  same  connec- 
tion, where  it  is  distinctly  ordered  that  the  disobedient  shall 
be  put  to  death:  "You  shall  keep  the  sabbath,  for  it  is  a 
sacred  thing  to  you;  every  one  who  profanes  it  shall  surely 
be  put  to  death;  whosoever  does  any  work  therein  shall  be 
cut  off  from  his  people"  (Ex.  31  :  14).  That  we  may  be 
in  no  doubt  as  to  the  severity  of  the  commandment  we  are 
told  of  a  man  who  was  found  gathering  sticks  on  the  sacred 
day  and  was  brought  to  Moses  for  judgment.  The  sentence 
of  death  was  given  by  a  direct  revelation  from  Yahweh 
(Num.  15  :  32-36). 

Emphasis  on  the  Sabbath  is,  for  the  reasons  already  in- 
dicated, a  mark  of  postexilic  authorship.  In  the  book  of 


232  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Jeremiah  we  read  a  passage  which  is  quite  out  of  harmony 
with  the  rest  of  that  prophet's  discourses.  It  exhorts  the 
kings  and  the  people  in  the  words:  "Take  heed  to  your- 
selves and  bear  no  burden  on  the  sabbath,  nor  bring  it  in 
by  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  neither  carry  forth  a  burden  out 
of  your  houses  on  the  sabbath,  neither  do  any  work  but 
hallow  the  sabbath  as  I  commanded  your  fathers "  (Jer. 
17  :  21).  There  follows  a  specific  promise  that  if  the  Sab- 
bath is  observed  the  kingdom  and  temple  will  stand  forever. 
The  view  of  this  writer  is  that  profanation  of  the  Sabbath 
was  the  reason  why  Jerusalem  was  destroyed,  something 
which  is  nowhere  else  affirmed  by  the  prophets  until  we 
come  to  Ezekiel.  Postexilic  also  is  the  identification  of 
"keeping  the  Sabbath"  with  "holding  fast  the  covenant" 
which  we  find  in  another  writer  (Isaiah  56  :  6).  The  con- 
trast between  this  theory  and  that  of  the  earlier  prophets, 
according  to  which  the  Sabbath,  like  the  other  ritual  ob- 
servances, is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  Yahweh  or  even 
displeasing  to  him  needs  only  to  be  mentioned. 

As  to  circumcision,  we  know  that  it  was  an  ancient  tribal 
mark  common  to  a  number  of  peoples,  among  them  the 
group  allied  by  blood  with  Israel.  It  became  the  distin- 
guishing badge  of  the  Jew  when  he  lived  in  the  midst  of 
people  who  did  not  practise  it.  The  pre-exilic  writers  lay 
no  stress  upon  it,  but  in  Ezekiel's  view  uncircumcision  is 
uncleanness.  The  priestly  writer  regards  it  as  the  sign  of 
the  covenant  and,  as  we  have  seen,  threatens  death  for  its 
neglect.  The  Talmud  goes  further  and  declares  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  circumcision  the  world  would  not  have 
been  created.  Jewish  authorities  add  that  the  higher  order 
of  angels  were  created  with  the  distinguishing  Jewish  mark 
upon  them. 

According  to  the  document  now  before  us  the  permission 
to  eat  flesh  given  to  Noah  and  his  sons  was  accompanied 
by  the  prohibition  of  blood.  We  may  suppose  the  author 
moved  by  ancient  custom  in  this  case  also.  According  to 
early  ideas  the  blood  is  sacred  and  consequently  belongs  to 


THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  233 

the  divinity.  So  late  as  the  time  of  Ezekiel  the  prohibition 
of  its  enjoyment  by  man  was  supposed  to  be  because  it  was 
the  food  of  God  and  was  brought  to  him  on  the  altar  (Ezek. 
44  :  7) .  That  this  belief  existed  to  a  late  period  is  indicated 
by  the  pains  taken  by  the  Psalmist  to  contradict  the  popu- 
lar impression  (Psalm  50  :  13).  The  priestly  author  could 
not  give  this  reason  to  Noah  because  he  thought  that  sac- 
rifice was  not  commanded  until  the  time  of  Moses;  but, 
all  the  same,  blood  was  to  him  an  uncanny  thing  which  no 
one  ought  to  eat.  The  divine  command  given  to  Noah 
should  naturally  bind  all  of  Noah's  descendants.  In  this 
case,  therefore,  as  in  the  matter  of  the  Sabbath,  the  Jews 
regarded  themselves  as  the  only  people  who  were  faithful 
to  the  divine  order  of  things. 

The  scheme  of  the  priestly  writer  included  a  gradual  reve- 
lation of  Israel's  religion.  It  also  included  a  gradual  narrow- 
ing of  Yahweh's  interest  from  mankind  at  large  down  to 
Israel.  The  early  history  of  the  world  is  divided  into  ten 
periods  each  marked  by  the  title:  "This  is  the  genealogy." 
The  series  ends  with  the  genealogy  of  the  sons  of  Jacob 
(Gen.  37  :  2).  But  whatever  evolution  there  was  stopped 
with  Moses,  for  he  received  the  final  and  complete  revela- 
tion of  the  will  of  Yahweh.  In  the  wilderness  the  ecclesi- 
astical commonwealth  was  organised  in  the  form  which  it 
must  have  throughout  all  future  generations.  The  new 
epoch  is  marked  by  the  revelation  of  the  name  of  Yahweh 
— this  had  been  stated  by  the  Elohist  also.  The  census  of 
Israel  is  taken  twice  in  the  wilderness,  as  if  to  assure  us 
that  the  nation  as  it  existed  in  the  time  of  Solomon  was 
born  full-grown  at  the  exodus.  The  colossal  miracle  by 
which  three  million  people  were  sustained  in  the  desert  forty 
years  does  not  disturb  our  author,  since  it  is  the  convincing 
evidence  of  Israel's  election. 

As  the  organisation  of  this  priestly  commonwealth  in  the 
wilderness  was  effected  by  direct  divine  activity,  so  was  the 
settlement  of  the  tribes  in  Canaan.  This  land  was  the  land 
of  Yahweh,  promised  by  him  to  the  patriarchs,  and  kept  in 


234  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

view  at  the  exodus  (Gen.  17  :  1-8;  Ex.  2  :  24).  The  con- 
quest had  been  narrated  by  a  Deuteronomic  author  in  such 
a  way  that  the  priestly  writer  did  not  need  to  revise  it  to 
any  extent,  but  the  division  of  the  country  among  the  tribes 
must  be  brought  into  the  scheme  by  relating  the  direct  divine 
command  given  to  Moses  before  his  death  (Num.  34).  The 
second  half  of  the  book  of  Joshua  narrates  how  the  com- 
mand was  carried  out.  The  allotment  was  accompanied  by 
a  provision  that  the  land  should  be  inalienable.  The  family 
which  receives  title  at  the  conquest  retains  it  for  ever.  If 
there  be  a  deficiency  of  male  heirs  daughters  may  inherit, 
but  on  condition  that  they  marry  kinsmen,  so  that  in  any 
case  the  land  shall  not  pass  out  of  the  tribe  to  which  it  was 
first  given.  The  sabbatic  system  is  now  made  to  secure  this 
end,  there  being  a  general  reversion  of  land  to  the  original 
owners  at  the  end  of  seven  sabbatic  periods  (Lev.  25).  The 
author  is  not  a  socialist,  desiring  to  prevent  a  monopoly  of 
landed  property;  he  is  a  religious  idealist  endeavouring  to 
secure  the  perpetuity  of  the  allotment  made  originally  by 
the  direction  of  Yahweh  himself.  It  is,  of  course,  obvious 
that  no  one  but  an  Israelite  will  ever  be  able  to  obtain 
foothold  in  Palestine,  and  that  consequently  the  sanctity  of 
Yahweh's  territory  will  always  be  preserved. 

What  customs  of  war  are  logically  implied  in  the  exclusive 
sanctity  of  Israel  is  set  before  us  in  the  anecdote  of  the 
slaughter  of  the  Midianites  (Num.  31).  This  tribe  having 
seduced  the  Israelites  to  idolatry,  Moses  sends  an  expedition 
against  them.  The  warriors  think  it  enough  to  slay  the 
adult  males  and  bring  the  women  and  children  to  the  camp 
of  Israel.  But  Moses  and  Eleazar  instruct  them  that  all  the 
males,  of  whatever  age,  and  all  the  women,  except  virgins, 
must  also  be  slain.  These,  therefore,  are  executed  in  cold 
blood.  The  soldiers,  being  ritually  unclean  by  reason  of 
their  contact  with  the  dead,  are  shut  out  of  the  camp  seven 
days  and  are  then  sprinkled  with  the  holy  water  kept  for 
purification.  The  booty  is  purified  by  fire  and  water  and 
divided  into  halves,  one  for  the  men  who  took  part  in 


THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  235 

the  expedition,  the  other  for  the  rest  of  the  people.  From 
each  portion,  before  its  distribution  to  individuals,  a  con- 
tribution is  made  to  the  sanctuary,  and  in  addition  to  this, 
which  is  intended  to  be  a  fixed  tax  (as  a  precedent),  the  war- 
riors insist  on  giving  a  thank-offering.  There  seems  to  be 
no  historic  basis  for  the  story;  it  only  embodies  the  author's 
idea  of  the  way  in  which  the  Israel  of  the  future  will  deal 
with  the  heathen. 

Since  the  history  of  the  Judges  and  the  history  of  the 
Kings  had  been  worked  over  by  a  Deuteronomic  hand  the 
priestly  school  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  re-edit  these  books. 
But  one  of  its  members,  dissatisfied  with  the  record,  made  a 
new  compendium  of  the  history,  containing  what  he  thought 
best  for  people  to  know.  Probably  he  intended  his  work, 
which  is  preserved  to  us  in  the  books  of  Chronicles  together 
with  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  to  take  the  place  of  the  other  nar- 
rative books.  For  the  period  between  the  creation  and  the 
accession  of  David  he  contents  himself  with  a  genealogical 
outline.  He  assumes  apparently  that  the  Law  is  in  the  hands 
of  his  readers  and  that  this  is  enough  for  this  earlier  period. 
He  has  little  use  for  the  Judges,  and  he  probably  regarded 
Saul  as  an  apostate.  In  fact,  he  ascribes  this  unhappy 
king's  death  to  the  vengeance  of  Yahweh  because  of  the  visit 
to  a  necromancer  (I  Chron.  10  :  13).  His  interest  becomes 
keen  when  he  writes  of  David.  His  David,  however,  is  not 
the  David  of  the  earlier  narrative — the  man  who  shows  many 
human  weaknesses.  Whatever  throws  a  shadow  on  the  great 
king  is  carefully  excluded  from  the  narrative.  What  is 
shown  us  is  a  great  churchman,  devoted  to  the  service  of  the 
sanctuary.  The  account  of  the  bringing  up  of  the  ark,  taken 
from  the  earlier  narrative,  is  changed  in  details  so  as  to  make 
David  conform  to  the  Mosaic  Law.  The  Levites,  who  are 
conspicuous  by  their  absence  from  the  earlier  story,  now 
appear  as  the  legitimate  carriers  of  the  sacred  object.  And 
being  thus  brought  into  the  story,  the  author  makes  use  of 
them  to  show  David's  care  for  the  ritual;  for  it  is  at  his 
command  that  the  Levites  arrange  the  companies  of  singers 


236  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

and  of  doorkeepers  (I  Chron.  15  : 16-24).  We  are  assured 
that  even  before  this  time  David  and  Samuel  had  set  the 
Levites  in  their  office  as  doorkeepers  for  the  tabernacle,  and 
that  they  lodged  about  the  house  of  God  (9  :  22  and  27). 
This  house  of  God  is  the  Mosaic  sanctuary,  which  the  author 
supposes  to  have  been  at  Gibeon  in  this  period.  Only  on 
this  hypothesis  could  he  understand  Solomon's  going  thither 
to  sacrifice.  At  this  sanctuary,  we  are  told,  David  organised 
the  guilds  of  Levitical  singers  "until  Solomon  should  build 
the  house  of  Yahweh"  (6  :  16-32;  cf.  15  :  11).  Further, 
in  conjunction  with  Zadok,  David  divided  the  priests  into 
twenty-four  courses,  and  made  twenty-four  courses  of  singers 
for  the  sake  of  symmetry  (24  and  25).  Obed-edom,  origi- 
nally a  foreigner,  is  now  made  a  Levite,  progenitor  of  a  family 
of  temple  servants.  Thus  the  correctness  of  the  service  is 
assured  from  the  time  of  David  on. 

The  work  of  David,  however,  is  only  preliminary,  for  in 
the  view  of  postexilic  Judaism  the  most  important  event  in 
the  history  of  the  world  was  the  building  of  the  temple. 
This  could  not  be  ascribed  to  David,  because  all  the  world 
knew  that  it  was  the  work  of  Solomon.  Our  author,  how- 
ever, gives  David  as  much  of  the  credit  as  was  possible. 
According  to  him  David  made  all  the  preparations,  gathered 
all  the  materials,  and  even  received  the  plan  from  Yahweh 
himself  (28  :  11).  The  extravagance  of  the  provision  is  in- 
dicated by  the  figures  given — a  hundred  thousand  talents  of 
gold  and  a  million  talents  of  silver,  besides  uncalculated 
amounts  of  timber,  stone,  bronze,  and  iron  (22 : 4  and  14). 
All  that  was  left  for  Solomon  to  do  was  to  carry  out  the 
plans  of  David,  and  to  conform  to  the  Law  of  Moses  (II 
Chron.  8  :  12-14). 

Since  the  temple  is  the  place  of  Yahweh's  residence,  and 
the  only  legitimate  place  of  worship,  the  rebellion  of  Jero- 
boam and  the  northern  tribes  was  apostasy  from  Yahweh. 
Having  this  conviction,  the  Chronicler  leaves  the  northern 
kingdom  out  of  his  history.  The  crowning  sin  was  that 
Jeroboam  expelled  the  true  priests  from  their  office.  Ac- 


THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  237 

cordingly,  the  priests  and  Levites  and  all  true  believers  are 
said  to  have  emigrated  from  the  northern  kingdom  (II  Chron. 
11  :  13-16;  13  :  4/.),  and  citizens  of  that  kingdom  are  under 
the  wrath  of  Yahweh  (25  :  6-10).  We  are  not  concerned 
here  with  the  historicity  of  any  of  these  statements,  but  with 
the  author's  point  of  view.  His  belief  is  that  Judah  has  the 
favour  of  Yahweh  as  long  as  the  temple  service  is  carried  on 
according  to  the  Law  of  Moses,  supplemented  by  the  regu- 
lations of  David.  A  good  king  makes  it  his  first  concern  to 
see  that  the  Law  is  observed.  Thus  Jehoshaphat  orders  the 
Levites  to  go  through  the  kingdom  and  instruct  the  people 
in  the  book  of  the  Law  (II  Chron.  17  :  7-10).  At  the  cor- 
onation of  Jehoash  the  princes  allow  none  but  priests  and 
Levites  to  enter  the  temple  (23  :  3-7).  Hezekiah  exhorts  the 
priests  and  Levites  to  consecrate  themselves  and  to  recon- 
secrate the  temple  (29  :  4/.);  he  re-establishes  the  courses  of 
priests  and  Levites  and  gives  order  for  their  proper  support 
(31  :  2-6).  Josiah  stations  the  priests  in  their  offices  and 
arranges  the  Levites  according  to  the  writing  of  David  and 
the  decree  of  Solomon  (35 : 3/.  and  15).  The  presence  of  the 
Levitical  singers  with  the  army  of  Jehoshaphat  is  enough  to 
secure  a  great  victory  over  the  Ethiopians  (20  :  21-24).  On 
the  other  hand,  Uzziah's  leprosy  (the  fact  was  known  from 
the  earlier  narrative)  is  now  accounted  for  as  a  punishment 
for  an  act  of  sacrilege;  the  king  is  said  to  have  intruded 
into  the  temple  and  to  have  had  the  presumption  to  offer 
incense,  thus  trespassing  on  the  prerogative  of  the  high  priest 
(26  : 16-20). 

Prophets  and  Deuteronomists  had  conspired  to  establish 
the  view  that  the  Exile  was  a  punishment  on  Judah  for  its 
disobedience  to  Yahweh.  The  Chronicler  adopts  this  view, 
and  gives  it  the  proper  ritualistic  colouring.  To  him  the 
specific  sin  which  called  for  exile  was  the  neglect  of  the  sab- 
batic years.  Seventy  years  of  exile  are  called  for,  to  give 
the  land  the  rest  of  which  it  had  been  deprived  during  the 
four  hundred  and  ninety  years  which  had  preceded  (36 : 21). 
The  author  believes  that  all  Judah  was  carried  away,  so  that 


238  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  land  was  destitute  of  inhabitants  until  the  return  under 
Joshua  and  Zerubbabel.  Since  the  family  of  David  was  not 
then  restored  to  the  throne  the  care  of  Yahweh  for  the  temple 
was  indicated  by  his  moving  gentile  kings  to  rebuild  it  and 
to  provide  for  the  worship.  Hence  we  learn  of  the  decrees 
of  Cyrus  and  his  successors.  Cyrus  recognises  Yahweh  as 
God  of  heaven  who  has  given  him  his  power  (Ezra  1  :  1-3) ; 
Darius  encourages  the  work  of  rebuilding  and  provides  for 
the  sacrifices  (6  :  6-12) ;  Artaxerxes  goes  beyond  either  of 
them  and  authorizes  Ezra  to  enforce  the  Mosaic  Law, 
exempts  the  temple  servants  from  taxation,  and  provides 
lavishly  from  the  public  revenues  for  the  carrying  on  of  the 
service  (7  :  17-26).  The  performance  of  the  ritual  is  the 
most  important  thing  in  the  world,  overshadowing  the  res- 
toration of  Israel's  nationality.  If  the  service  cannot  be  pro- 
vided for  by  a  king  of  David's  line,  the  next  best  thing  is  to 
have  a  gentile  king  attend  to  it.  Hence  the  evident  satis- 
faction with  which  these  various  decrees  are  reproduced  (we 
cannot  tell  from  what  source)  in  the  narrative. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  book  (Chronicles,  Ezra,  and 
Nehemiah)  is  taken  up  by  genealogies,  and  this  fact  is  ex- 
plicable when  we  remember  the  priestly  point  of  view.  By 
divine  command  the  temple  service  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
priests  and  Levites.  These  must  be  of  genuine  Levitical 
blood.  The  community  which  lives  about  the  temple  in  like 
manner  must  be  genuinely  Israelitic,  for  it  was  the  descendants 
of  Jacob  whom  Yahweh  had  chosen  to  be  his  people.  The 
line  was,  therefore,  sharply  drawn  in  the  postexilic  com- 
munity between  the  people  of  the  land  who  were  suspected 
of  Canaanitish  admixture  and  those  who  could  show  their 
purity  of  blood.  These  last  alone  were  (in  theory,  at  least) 
admitted  to  membership  in  the  new  community.  The  book 
of  Ezra  shows  us  the  rigid  logic  of  the  purists,  who  demanded 
the  divorce  of  foreign  wives  even  when  they  had  borne  chil- 
dren to  their  husbands.  So  drastic  a  measure  can  hardly 
have  been  carried  through,  but  the  demand  shows  the  stand- 
ard set  by  the  legalists,  of  whom  Ezra  is  the  type.  The 


THE  DOGMATIC  BIAS  239 

most  important  man  in  the  community  is  now  the  scribe,  to 
whom  the  written  law  is  everything,  and  obedience  to  it  is 
the  whole  duty  of  man.  To  enforce  this  lesson  is  the  pur- 
pose of  the  literature  we  have  been  considering. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

THE  history  of  the  Jews  in  the  Persian  period  is  very  im- 
perfectly known.  In  the  early  part  of  it  Zerubbabel,  appar- 
ently a  descendant  of  David,  was  civil  governor  in  Jerusalem, 
and  the  little  community  under  his  rule  rebuilt  the  temple. 
The  city  had  lost  its  earlier  importance  and  the  district  sub- 
ject to  it  was  insignificant  in  size.  The  people  were  dis- 
couraged, the  city  walls  were  not  restored,  and  the  temple 
itself  was  a  sorry  structure  compared  to  the  one  erected  by 
Solomon.  It  was  nearly  a  century  after  the  Persian  con- 
quest of  Babylon  before  the  fortunes  of  the  sacred  city  began 
to  revive,  and  the  impetus  then  came  from  outside  of  Pal- 
estine— an  energetic  Jew  arrived  from  the  court  of  the  great 
king  armed  with  authority  from  his  master  and  animated  by 
patriotic  zeal  for  the  city  of  his  fathers.  Under  his  influence 
other  Jews  came  from  the  East  and  took  up  their  residence 
in  Palestine.  These  immigrants  looked  upon  themselves  as 
the  true  Israel  and  distrusted  the  remnant  in  Palestine  who 
claimed  to  be  of  the  same  stock.  Their  unyielding  temper 
is  revealed  by  Nehemiah's  own  record,  which  shows  how  an- 
tagonism existed  from  the  time  of  his  arrival.  The  introduc- 
tion of  the  priestly  law  and  the  measures  taken  against 
foreign  marriages  accented  the  division.  On  one  side  was 
the  party  of  those  who  came  from  the  East  with  such  of  the 
"people  of  the  land"  as  accepted  the  Law;  on  the  other  was 
the  country  party,  led  by  one  Sanballat,  prefect  of  Samaria, 
which,  when  finally  excluded  from  Jerusalem,  built  a  temple 
on  Mount  Gerizim  and  became  the  sect  of  the  Samaritans. 

The  postexilic  community  nourished  its  intellectual  life  on 

240 


THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE  241 

the  books  which  had  come  down  from  earlier  times  and  read 
into  them  more  hope  for  the  future  than  they  actually  con- 
tained. It  was  easy  to  find  in  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs 
pledges  for  the  continued  favour  of  God.  The  narrative  of 
the  deliverance  from  Egypt  afforded  a  parallel  to  the  hoped- 
for  redemption  from  another  slavery.  The  experiences  of 
the  exile  had  strengthened  the  sense  of  sin,  but  this  sense  of 
sin  had  always  beneath  it  the  faith  that  repentance  would 
be  followed  by  pardon  and  restoration.  The  precedent  was 
set  by  the  narratives  of  the  wilderness  wandering  which  told 
how  the  rebels  had  actually  been  forgiven.  Nehemiah's 
prayer  gives  an  affecting  picture  of  this  state  of  mind.  The 
penitent,  after  confessing  the  sins  of  the  fathers,  reminds  his 
God  that  Moses  had  given  assurance  that  the  outcast  Israel- 
ites should  be  gathered  again  if  only  they  would  turn  to 
Yahweh  (Neh.  1  :  6-9). 

It  was  natural  that  much  attention  should  be  given  to 
passages  which  were  predictive  in  form.  The  literary  device 
of  putting  such  passages  into  the  mouth  of  ancient  worthies 
was  not  unknown  even  in  the  pre-exilic  period.  Thus  the 
patriarch  Jacob  is  made  to  foresee  the  fate  of  his  sons. 
The  promise  of  dominion  to  Judah  had  been  amply  verified 
by  the  kingship  given  to  David.  But  the  postexilic  Jew 
found  it  impossible  to  believe  that  that  fulfilment  was  final. 
It  was  more  in  accordance  with  the  richness  of  divine  grace 
to  expect  a  larger  verification  in  the  time  yet  to  come.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  utterances  of  Balaam.  This  enigmatic 
seer  had  been  called  to  pronounce  a  curse  on  Israel,  but  the 
curse  had  been  turned  into  a  blessing.  And  the  most  strik- 
ing part  of  it  was  the  vision  of  a  star  out  of  Jacob  and 
a  sceptre  from  Israel  (Num.  23  :  21;  24  :  17).  Whatever 
might  be  said  of  the  fulfilment  in  David,  the  religious  reader 
could  hardly  bring  himself  to  suppose  that  a  word  of  God 
would  exhaust  its  full  meaning  in  any  one  age.  It  is  true 
that  to  us,  who  have  the  trained  historical  sense,  this  seek- 
ing of  a  double  meaning  in  Scripture  seems  to  be  fallacious, 
but  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  by  just  this  method 


242  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

many  fainting  souls  have  been  strengthened  not  only  in 
Judaism  but  also  in  Christianity. 

The  books  of  the  prophets  were  studied  in  this  way  and 
they  were  also  supplemented  by  the  scribes  to  whom  the 
severity  of  the  early  message  was  often  intolerable.  Some 
hopeful  features  may  have  been  discovered  in  the  messages 
of  these  great  preachers,  even  though  the  message  was  (as  it 
so  often  was)  one  of  denunciation.  Thus,  underneath  the 
sombre  accusations  of  Hosea  there  was  the  thought  that  Yah- 
weh  still  loved  Israel  though  forced  to  cast  her  off.  Isaiah  at 
some  time  in  his  career  had  given  hints  of  a  remnant  which 
would  survive  the  coming  calamity.  It  was  he  who  had 
declared  that  a  sure  corner-stone  was  laid  in  Zion.  Even 
Jeremiah  had  intimated  that  a  restoration  would  come  after 
seventy  years.  The  intention  of  the  prophet  was,  as  we 
know,  to  discourage  the  optimism  of  the  exiles,  who  were 
looking  for  an  early  redemption;  to  impress  upon  them  the 
need  of  adjusting  themselves  to  the  life  in  Babylon.  But 
now  the  seventy  years  had  passed  and  the  hope  of  revival 
became  vivid.  In  like  manner  Ezekiel  had  thought  of  forty 
years  as  the  duration  of  the  captivity  (Ezek.  29  :  11-13). 
Ezekiel,  in  fact,  was  the  man  who  gave  definite  form  to  the 
hope  of  a  restoration.  His  programme,  which  we  have  already 
considered,  was  thoroughly  supernatural — that  is,  it  looked 
for  an  act  of  God  to  change  the  nature  of  the  soil  of  Canaan 
and  to  change  also  the  hearts  of  the  people.  The  change  in 
the  soil  had  not  come,  but  thoroughly  penitent  Israelites 
might  hope  that  the  divine  grace  had  already  operated  on 
their  hearts. 

The  definite  lines  with  which  Ezekiel  had  drawn  his  picture 
of  the  future  commonwealth  made  a  deep  impression  on  his 
people.  His  scheme  included  three  essential  features  of 
what  we  know  from  his  time  on  as  the  Messianic  hope. 
These  were:  the  punishment  of  the  hostile  world-power,  the 
restoration  of  Israel  to  its  own  land,  and  the  dwelling  of 
Yahweh  in  the  midst  of  the  new  commonwealth.  The  head- 
ship of  a  prince  of  the  house  of  David  is  included,  but  this 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  243 

was  in  EzekiePs  view  only  a  minor  feature.  His  belief  in 
the  visible  presence  of  Yahweh  in  his  temple  made  an 
earthly  prince  superfluous.  The  prince  in  his  scheme  be- 
comes only  the  steward  of  the  sanctuary.  In  saying,  there- 
fore, that  Ezekiel  is  the  father  of  the  Messianic  expectation, 
we  must  be  careful  to  note  that  the  expectation  is  Messianic 
in  the  broader  sense  only;  it  looked  for  the  restoration  of  the 
theocratic  community  but  did  not  picture  it  as  a  kingdom  in 
which  the  personal  Messiah  would  be  the  dominant  figure. 

Loyalty  to  the  house  of  David  would,  however,  be  strength- 
ened by  the  experiences  of  exile,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
majority  of  the  people  could  conceive  of  the  restored  nation 
in  no  other  way  than  as  a  monarchy  with  a  member  of  the 
legitimate  dynasty  on  the  throne.  Evidence  of  this  state 
of  mind  is  given  by  the  two  little  books  of  Haggai  and  Zech- 
ariah.1  The  two  prophets  were  active  in  connection  with 
the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  in  the  reign  of  Darius  I.  Hag- 
gai shows  us  how  the  expectation  of  a  miraculous  interven- 
tion of  Yahweh  really  prevented  activity  on  the  part  of 
the  people.  They  said  that  the  time  for  rebuilding  had 
not  come,  just  because  Yahweh  gave  no  sign  of  return- 
ing to  his  people.  Haggai  reasoned  the  other  way:  that 
Yahweh  would  do  his  part  when  the  people  did  theirs. 
They  looked  upon  the  bad  harvests  as  discouragements; 
he  thought  them  a  result  of  their  neglect  of  the  house. 
"You  looked  for  much,  but  it  came  to  little,  and  when  you 
brought  it  home  I  shrivelled  it  up.  Why?  says  Yahweh 
Sabaoth:  Because  of  my  house  which  lies  waste  while  each 
of  you  takes  pleasure  in  his  own  house"  (Hag.  1:9). 

Under  this  encouragement  Zerubbabel,  the  governor,  and 
Joshua,  the  high  priest,  set  to  work  and  the  temple  was  re- 
built. Haggai  is  confident  that  this  event  foreshadows  the 
great  restoration.  "I  will  shake  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
and  overturn  the  throne  of  kingdoms.  ...  In  that  day  I 
will  take  thee,  O  Zerubbabel  my  servant,  and  will  make  thee 

1  Zech.  1-8  only  belongs  here;  the  rest  of  the  book  bears  marks  of  a 
later  date. 


244  THE  RELIGION  OF   ISRAEL 

a  signet;  for  I  have  chosen  thee,  says  Yahweh  Sabaoth" 
(Hag.  2  :  21-23).  Since  the  king  of  Judah  is  the  signet  on 
Yahweh's  right  hand  (Jer.  22  :  24),  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Haggai  expects  the  restoration  of  the  house  of  David 
to  come  at  once,  with  Zerubbabel  as  the  reigning  monarch. 
His  contemporary,  Zechariah,  shared  this  expectation.  In 
vision  this  prophet  sees  evil  banished  from  the  land,  the 
nations  rendered  impotent  to  harm  Judah,  and  Zerubbabel 
crowned  king  of  the  new  commonwealth  with  the  high  priest 
as  his  coadjutor.  The  exiles  will  return  and  Yahweh  him- 
self will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  his  people  (Zech.  8  :  1-8). 
The  declaration  concerning  Zerubbabel  (6  :  9-15)  has  been 
obscured  in  the  current  Hebrew  text,  but  the  original  is  still 
discoverable.  Disappointment  followed,  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  expectation  brought  a  tragic  fate  to  Zerubbabel, 
but  the  hope  lived  on. 

The  hope  lived  on,  but  it  had  to  struggle  with  indiffer- 
ence and  scepticism.  Evidence  of  this  is  given  by  the  little 
book  called  by  the  name  of  Malachi.  The  change  of  view 
which  has  taken  place  is  plain  when  we  compare  this  preacher 
with  Amos  and  Isaiah.  To  them  the  cultus  is  hateful  to 
Yahweh;  to  him  the  neglect  of  the  ritual  is  the  great  sin 
of  the  people.  He  complains  that  the  altar  is  defrauded  of 
its  dues  and  that  the  priests  connive  at  this  sin.  The  tem- 
ple service  is  the  centre  of  the  prophet's  thought;  what 
afflicts  him  is  that  the  lame  and  the  blind  are  brought  in 
sacrifice  (Mai.  1  :  6-8)  and  that  tithe  and  tribute  are  with- 
held (3  :  8).  The  reason  of  this  neglect  is  scepticism,  and 
this  has  arisen  from  Yahweh's  long  delay  to  carry  out  his 
promises.  Two  parties  exist  in  Jerusalem:  one  is  that  of 
the  unbelieving,  who  say :  "  Every  one  that  does  evil  is  good 
in  the  sight  of  Yahweh  and  he  takes  pleasure  in  them; 
where  is  the  God  of  Justice?"  (2  :  17.)  These  say:  "It  is 
vain  to  serve  God,  and  what  profit  is  it  that  we  have  kept 
his  charge  and  have  walked  mournfully  before  Yahweh 
Sabaoth?  Now  we  call  the  proud  happy,  yes  they  that 
work  wickedness  are  built  up,  they  tempt  God  and  escape" 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  245 

(3  :  13/.).  Opposed  to  them  is  the  little  band  of  those 
who  trust  Yahweh.  To  these  the  prophet  gives  assurance 
that  they  are  not  forgotten  of  their  God,  but  that  their 
names  are  preserved  in  a  book  of  remembrance  for  the 
coming  day  (3  :  16/.).  This  day  is  a  day  of  judgment,  for 
Yahweh  will  sit  as  a  refiner  of  silver  and  purge  the  dross 
from  his  people  (3  :  2).  "The  wicked  will  be  as  stubble  and 
will  be  burned  root  and  branch,  but  to  those  that  fear  the 
Name  the  sun  of  righteousness  will  rise  with  healing  in 
his  beams"  (3  :  19/.;  4  : 1/.,  E.  V.). 

The  common  expectation  held  by  the  pious  throughout 
this  period  is  here  reproduced,  but  with  some  details  that 
seem  to  be  original  with  Malachi.  The  idea  of  a  heavenly 
book  of  reckoning,  in  which  are  written  the  names  of  those 
who  are  well-pleasing  to  God  so  that  they  may  be  rewarded 
in  the  time  of  trial,  is  not  met  with  in  the  earlier  literature 
unless  we  take  into  account  the  brief  and  obscure  allusion 
in  the  Pentateuch  (Ex.  32  :  32/.).  Malachi  is  also  the  first 
to  mention  the  prophet  Elijah  as  herald  of  the  Messianic 
time.  Elijah  suggested  himself  as  the  proper  person  for 
this  office,  not  only  because  he  was  a  courageous  advocate 
of  the  true  religion  in  a  time  of  backsliding,  but  because  he 
had  been  taken  to  heaven  and  so  had  escaped  the  common 
lot  of  man.  Having  been  admitted  to  the  heavenly  counsels, 
he  would  be  able  to  announce  the  plan  of  God  with  author- 
ity. But  it  is  noticeable  that  Malachi  does  not  expect  a 
human  Messiah;  he  believes  that  Yahweh  himself,  or  rather 
the  angel  who  represents  him,  will  come  and  regulate  af- 
fairs in  the  Jewish  community. 

In  the  circle  of  those  who  feared  God  the  Scriptures 
of  the  prophets  were  read  and  studied,  and  it  is  easy  to 
see  how  they  were  supplemented  by  sections  which  gave 
expression  to  the  longing  for  redemption.  In  many  cases 
leaflets  embodying  this  longing  were  circulated  from  hand 
to  hand  and  finally  added  to  the  books  of  the  prophets. 
Thus,  in  the  book  of  Jeremiah,  we  have  the  complete  Messi- 
anic programme  set  forth  in  language  that  we  cannot  pos- 


246  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

sibly  suppose  to  have  been  used  by  that  preacher  ( Jer.  30  and 
31).  The  opening  section  gives  the  theme :  "  I  will  turn  again 
the  captivity  of  my  people  Israel  and  Judah,  says  Yahweh, 
and  I  will  cause  them  to  return  to  the  land  that  I  gave  their 
fathers  and  they  shall  possess  it."  There  follows  a  sketch 
of  the  dismay  which  will  overtake  the  nations  when  Yah- 
weh breaks  the  yoke  of  oppression.  Yahweh  will  thus  be 
the  saviour  of  his  people  and  they  shall  have  a  second  David, 
a  prince  of  their  own  blood.  The  land  will  be  secure  and 
its  fruits  will  abound,  so  that  the  virgin  will  rejoice  in  the 
dance.  The  climax  is  reached  with  the  promise  of  a  new 
covenant:  "Not  according  to  the  covenant  which  I  made 
with  their  fathers  in  the  day  when  I  took  them  by  the  hand 
to  lead  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  which  covenant  of 
mine  they  broke;  but  this  is  the  covenant  which  I  will  make 
with  the  house  of  Israel  after  those  days,  says  Yahweh: 
I  will  put  my  Law  in  their  inward  parts  and  on  their  heart 
I  will  write  it;  and  I  will  be  their  God  and  they  shall  be 
my  people;  and  they  shall  no  more  teach  every  man  his 
brother  and  every  man  his  neighbour,  saying :  Know  Yah- 
weh!— for  they  shall  all  know  me,  from  the  least  of  them 
to  the  greatest  of  them,  says  Yahweh;  for  I  will  forgive 
their  iniquity  and  their  sin  I  will  remember  no  more"  (Jer. 
31 :  32-34). 

The  vitality  of  the  Messianic  hope  doubtless  came  from 
this  distinctly  religious  appeal.  The  sense  of  estrangement 
from  their  God  was  the  hardest  thing  that  the  exiles  had 
to  bear.  Their  comfort  was  found  in  such  assurances  of  for- 
giveness as  we  have  here.  At  the  same  time  we  must  re- 
member that  many  of  the  Jews  found  a  less  spiritual  con- 
solation in  the  predictions  of  vengeance  which  circulated  in 
this  period.  Ezekiel's  treatment  of  Gog  set  the  example  for 
a  number  of  writers  who  envisaged  the  hostile  power,  not  as 
a  mysterious  invader  from  the  north,  but  as  the  actually 
existing  Babylon  which  had  besieged  Jerusalem  and  burned 
the  temple.  Babylon  became  the  typical  figure,  the  arch- 
enemy, guilty  of  oppression  of  Israel  and  of  sacrilege  com- 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  247 

mitted  against  the  God  of  Israel.  This  typical  position  it 
retained  even  after  the  rise  of  the  Persian  empire,  for  Cyrus 
did  not  destroy  the  great  city;  he,  in  fact,  made  it  one  of 
his  capitals,  and  it  remained  the  most  important  city  of  the 
East  until  after  Alexander's  triumph.  So  long  as  this  em- 
bodiment of  luxury,  pride,  and  godlessness  stood,  the  Jews 
were  longing  for  her  overthrow  as  the  crowning  proof  of  the 
divine  justice;  hence  the  bitterness  of  some  of  the  proph- 
ecies which  concern  themselves  with  this  event.  A  good 
example  is  the  supplement  to  the  book  of  Jeremiah  (Jer.  50 
and  51).  Repeatedly  the  writer  assures  us  that  Babylon  is 
about  to  be  destroyed,  for  Yahweh  is  about  to  take  ven- 
geance for  his  temple.  Repeatedly,  also,  the  exiles  are  ex- 
horted to  flee  out  of  the  land  of  their  captivity  and  return  to 
their  own  land.  In  this  narrow  circle  of  ideas  the  author 
moves  round  and  round  without  making  any  progress.  At 
the  end  we  are  assured  that  Jeremiah  sent  the  written  leaflet 
to  Babylon  and  had  it  read  as  a  testimony  against  the  city 
and  then  cast  into  the  Euphrates.  The  literary  device  is 
transparent.  What  interests  us,  however,  is  the  desire  for 
vengeance  which  breathes  in  the  lines.  A  similar  but  more 
finished  production  has  been  included  in  the  book  of  Isaiah 
(Isaiah  13  and  14).  Here  we  read  how  Babylon,  the  op- 
pressor, is  to  be  overthrown  by  Yahweh's  army,  mustered 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  this  purpose,  and  accompanied 
by  convulsions  of  nature  (13:1-10).  The  redeemed  Israelites 
will  sing  a  song  of  triumph  over  the  slain  king  of  Babylon, 
taunting  him  with  his  ignominious  fate :  "  Cast  out  from  the 
tomb  like  a  despised  branch"  (14  :  18/.).  Few  passages 
show  so  distinctly  the  hatred  felt  by  the  Jew  for  his  op- 
pressors. 

In  its  complete  form  the  Messianic  expectation  involved 
four  things:  the  punishment  of  the  foreign  nations;  the  re- 
turn of  Israel  to  its  own  land;  a  new  covenant;  and  the  rule 
of  a  king  of  David's  line.  But  not  all  these  features  are 
emphasised  at  the  same  time.  The  political  colouring  varies 
greatly.  Some  hearts  felt  an  ardent  longing  for  the  suprem- 


248  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

acy  of  Israel  over  all  the  nations.  But  for  the  most  part  the 
religious  desire  for  forgiveness,  purification,  and  the  presence 
of  God  is  the  one  most  distinctly  expressed.  The  severity  of 
Hosea  was  corrected  by  a  later  hand,  which  promised  that 
Yahweh  would  heal  the  people's  backsliding  and  love  them 
freely  (Hosea  14  :  4).  A  similar  consolatory  conclusion  was 
added  to  the  book  of  Amos,  specifically  promising  the  re- 
erection  of  the  fallen  tent  of  David,  together  with  millennial 
plenty  in  the  land.  The  original  book  of  Isaiah  was  com- 
pleted by  a  picture  of  paradisiacal  peace  and  fruitfulness. 
How  far  such  passages  were  intended  to  be  taken  literally  is 
still  obscure  to  us. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  figure  of  a  human  ruler  was  not  con- 
stantly present  in  these  anticipations.  In  many  instances 
the  thought  of  Yahweh's  coming  to  rule  his  people,  in  the 
midst  of  whom  he  would  dwell,  overshadowed  the  earthly 
king.  Yet  in  many  places  we  meet  the  king  of  David's  line 
who  will  fulfil  the  promises  made  to  his  great  ancestor 
(II  Sam.  7).  The  supplementer  of  Amos,  in  assuring  us  that 
the  fallen  tent  of  David  shall  be  raised  again,  doubtless  means 
that  there  will  be  a  son  of  David  on  the  throne.  One  writer 
apostrophises  the  decayed  town  of  Bethlehem  with  the 
promise  that  it  shall  again  give  birth  to  a  ruler  of  the  ancient 
stock  (Micah  5  :  1-3).  Isaiah's  prediction  of  the  child  to 
be  born,  whose  name,  Immanuel,  will  testify  to  the  deliver- 
ance of  Jerusalem  from  its  besiegers,  suggested  a  rapturous 
description  of  the  Coming  One,  whose  very  name  indicates 
that  he  will  be  a  hero  prince,  godlike  in  his  deeds  (Isaiah 
9:5).  Another  passage  now  embedded  in  Isaiah's  book  de- 
clares: "A  king  shall  rule  in  righteousness  and  princes  shall 
reign  in  judgment,  and  a  man  shall  be  a  hiding-place  from 
the  wind,  a  covert  from  the  tempest,  as  rivers  of  water  in  a 
dry  place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land" 
(Isaiah  32  :  I/.).  It  is  by  no  means  sure  that  in  such  pas- 
sages the  authors  were  thinking  of  one  single  superhuman,  or 
at  least  heroic,  figure;  they  probably  had  in  mind  the  suc- 
cession of  Davidic  rulers  who  would  secure  peace  and  pros- 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  249 

perity  for  their  subjects.  This  is  true  even  where  the  pre- 
diction seems  most  distinctly  individual,  as  in  the  celebrated 
passage  which  declares  that  the  spirit  of  Yahweh  will  fit 
the  king  to  be  a  just  judge,  a  vindicator  of  the  oppressed 
(Isaiah  11  :  1-8).  But  again  it  is  Yahweh  who  will  be  the 
protecting  cloud  over  all  the  dwellings  in  Jerusalem  (Isaiah 
4:5),  making  the  human  ruler  superfluous.  In  the  good 
time  to  come  the  righteous  will  dwell  with  Yahweh  and  will 
see  him,  their  king,  in  his  beauty :  "  There  Yahweh  will  be 
with  us  in  majesty,  Yahweh  the  lawgiver,  Yahweh  the  king" 
(33  :  17  and  21). 

The  material  we  have  considered  makes  it  obvious  that  no 
pains  were  taken  to  bring  the  expectations  of  the  Jews  into 
a  single  harmonious  picture.  It  is  probable  that  really  re- 
ligious people  fixed  their  hope  more  on  the  personal  presence 
of  Yahweh  in  his  temple  than  on  any  human  ruler.  The 
most  distinct  prediction  of  a  human  Messiah  aside  from  the 
two  we  have  considered  is  the  one  in  Zechariah  which  de- 
scribes him  as  meek  and  riding  on  an  ass  (Zech.  9:9). 
Such  a  personage  is  overshadowed  by  the  divine  majesty, 
under  whose  protection  his  reign  is  one  of  uninterrupted 
peace.  But  in  either  form — whether  it  pictured  the  reign 
of  Yahweh  or  whether  it  looked  for  a  son  of  David — the 
Messianic  hope  kept  the  Jews  faithful  to  their  religion  and 
obedient  to  their  Law. 


CHAPTER  XV 
SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

THE  preceding  chapter  has  shown  the  importance  of  the 
Messianic  expectation  in  keeping  alive  the  religion  of  the 
Jews.  But  this  expectation  was  not  consistent  in  all  its 
parts.  To  make  a  real  contribution  to  the  religious  history 
of  mankind  it  needed  to  be  unified  and  spiritualised.  These 
qualities  it  received  in  the  book  which  now  forms  the  second 
half  of  Isaiah  (Isaiah  40-66).  Whether  these  chapters  are 
the  work  of  one  man  or  whether  they  belong  to  a  group  of 
like-minded  thinkers  is  a  question  of  minor  importance. 
What  is  clear  is  that  the  same  ideas  are  expressed  in  all 
parts  of  the  book,  and  that  these  ideas  mark  it  off  distinctly 
from  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  form  we  have  here  a  series  of  poems  which  treat  of  God 
and  his  relation  to  the  world,  of  Israel  in  its  present  low 
estate,  of  the  problem  of  suffering  as  illustrated  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  chosen  people,  of  sin,  of  forgiveness,  of  the  re- 
ligious life  and  of  the  future  glory.  Throughout,  the  author 
speaks  as  a  prophet,  that  is,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  Yahweh. 
Yet  in  him  the  experiences  of  the  believer  find  expression, 
whether  in  the  joy  of  perfect  trust  or  in  the  pain  of  conflict 
with  temptation  and  doubt.  The  preacher  is  fully  conscious 
of  his  mission  to  comfort  the  faint-hearted  and  to  confute 
the  unbelieving.  He  will  not  only  proclaim  the  will  of  God, 
he  will  justify  his  ways.  His  unshaken  confidence  in  the 
God  of  Israel  as  God  of  the  whole  earth  makes  him  the  first 
of  universalistic  theologians,  but  a  theologian  made  by  the 
heart  rather  than  by  the  intellect. 

His  fundamental  thesis  is  this:  Yahweh  is  the  only  God, 

250 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  251 

beside  him  there  is  no  other:  " I  am  Yahweh  and  there  is  none 
else;  beside  me  there  is  no  God:  That  men  may  acknowledge 
both  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  that  beside  me  there  is 
no  other — who  form  light  and  create  darkness,  who  make 
welfare  and  create  calamity — I,  Yahweh,  the  true  God,  am 
author  of  all  this"  (45  :  5-7).  The  terms  used  make  us 
think  that  the  author  has  in  view  the  Persian  dualism  which 
apportions  light  and  darkness  to  the  two  opposing  chief 
powers.  But  if  this  be  true  it  is  also  true  that  he  more  dis- 
tinctly opposed  the  crass  polytheism  which  was  the  religion 
of  the  common  people  of  gentile  race  among  whom  the 
Israelites  dwelt.  The  alleged  gods  of  the  heathen  are  the 
objects  of  his  most  biting  invective.  To  him  they  are  only 
so  many  manufactured  articles.  The  smith  who  prepares 
such  an  image  over  the  burning  coals,  instead  of  being 
strengthened  by  it,  grows  faint  at  his  work;  the  carpenter 
who  marks  out  the  human  figure  on  a  piece  of  timber  and 
fashions  it  into  an  idol  does  not  reflect  on  the  absurdity  of 
the  process :  "  Half  of  it  he  burns  in  the  fire,  and  upon  the 
coals  thereof  he  roasts  flesh;  he  eats  the  flesh  and  is  satisfied, 
he  warms  himself  also  and  says:  Aha,  I  am  warm,  I  feel  the 
glow;  and  the  residue  he  makes  into  a  god!  Makes  it  into  an 
image  and  bows  down  to  it!  He  prostrates  himself  before  it 
and  says :  Rescue  me,  for  thou  art  my  god ! "  (44  :  16  /.)  Of 
course,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  this  does  less  than 
justice  to  the  more  thoughtful  of  the  heathen  to  whom  the 
image  is  only  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual  being.  But  as  against 
the  religion  of  the  common  people  the  protest  was  justified, 
and  this  accentuation  of  the  contrast  between  Yahweh  and 
the  idols  was  what  Israel  needed  at  this  time.  Not  syn- 
cretism of  all  religions  was  the  need  of  the  hour,  but  the 
proclamation  of  the  one  God,  the  Creator  of  the  world,  and 
the  Father  of  the  human  spirit. 

The  intensity  of  the  author's  faith  comes  out  in  his  chal- 
lenge to  the  other  gods:  "Let  them  draw  near  and  announce 
to  us  what  shall  happen ;  relate  former  events,  how  they  were 
foretold,  that  we  may  reflect  upon  them;  or  else  declare  to 


252  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

us  the  future  that  we  may  mark  their  issue;  announce  the 
things  that  are  to  come  hereafter  that  we  may  know  that 
you  are  gods;  yea,  do  something  either  good  or  bad  that  we 
may  marvel  and  have  something  to  see!  Behold  you  are 
nought  and  your  work  is  nothingness !"  (41  :  22-24.)  In 
spite  of  the  greatness  of  Babylon,  her  divinities  are  as  im- 
potent as  others:  "Bel  bows  down  and  Nebo  stoops;  their 
images  have  passed  to  the  beasts  and  to  the  cattle"  (46  :  1). 
The  contrast  is  here  drawn  between  the  helpless  and  sense- 
less images  which  are  a  burden  to  their  worshippers,  which 
have  to  be  carried  when  danger  threatens,  these  on  the  one 
hand;  and  on  the  other,  Yahweh,  the  living,  active,  support- 
ing God,  who  bears  his  people  up  in  his  arms.  Such  scorn  of 
the  idols  became  ingrained  in  Jewish  thought  and  finds  fre- 
quent expression  in  later  documents. 

That  Yahweh  is  Creator  of  the  world  had  been  affirmed 
by  pre-exilic  writers.  But  the  religious  application  of  the 
belief  had  not  been  made.  Now  we  learn  not  only  that  he 
is  Creator  but  that  the  work  of  creation  and  the  work  of 
providence  are  one.  He  who  sits  on  the  vault  of  heaven, 
weighs  the  mountains  in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance,  is 
the  one  who  is  still  at  work  ruling  the  affairs  of  the  nations. 
History  is  the  carrying  out  of  his  purpose :  "  My  purpose  shall 
stand,  and  all  my  pleasure  I  will  perform;  as  I  have  spoken 
I  will  bring  to  pass;  as  I  have  planned  I  will  accomplish" 
(46  :  ll/.).  This  implies  the  attribute  of  wisdom  as  well 
as  that  of  power :  "  Who  has  measured  the  mind  of  Yahweh, 
or  who  as  his  counsellor  gave  him  knowledge?  With  whom 
has  he  taken  counsel  that  he  might  obtain  insight,  and  be 
taught  the  path  of  right  and  be  shown  the  way  of  under- 
standing?" (40  :  13/.)  The  immediate  practical  bearing 
of  such  declarations  is  easily  seen,  for  it  is  the  author's  con- 
viction that  the  historical  activity  of  Yahweh  is  especially 
concerned  with  Israel.  It  was  he  who  had  called  Abraham 
when  but  one  man  and  increased  him  to  a  great  nation 
(51  :  2) ;  it  was  he  who  had  led  Israel  through  the  Red  Sea 
and  annihilated  the  pursuing  host  (43  :  16;  51  :  9/.).  The 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  253 

present  misery  of  Israel  proves  nothing  against  this  care  on 
the  part  of  Yahweh,  and  nothing  against  his  power,  for  it 
is  he  who  has  given  his  own  people  over  to  punishment, 
because  of  their  sins.  Proof  is  given  by  the  earlier  prophe- 
cies in  which  Yahweh  made  known  what  was  coming  to  pass, 
for  only  the  God  who  makes  history  is  able  to  predict  what 
history  is  to  be:  "The  former  events,  behold,  they  came,  and 
new  things  do  I  announce;  before  they  spring  into  being  I 
tell  you  of  them"  (42  :  9).  "It  was  I  who  both  announced 
and  declared  and  there  was  no  strange  god  among  you; 
you  are  my  witnesses,  says  Yahweh,  and  I  am  your  re- 
deemer from  the  beginning"  (43  :  12/.). 

The  immediate  practical  interest  of  the  author  is  seen  in 
the  context.  His  purpose  is  to  encourage  the  depressed 
Israelites  by  assuring  them  that  the  power  of  this  Creator 
and  Governor  of  the  universe  is  at  the  disposition  of  those 
who  will  avail  themselves  of  it:  "Why  sayest  thou  Jacob, 
and  speakest,  O  Israel:  My  fortune  is  hidden  from  Yahweh 
and  my  right  is  unnoticed  by  my  God?  Hast  thou  not 
perceived?  Hast  thou  not  heard?  An  everlasting  God  is 
Yahweh,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth;  he  faints  not 
nor  can  he  be  wearied;  his  insight  is  unsearchable;  to  the 
weary  he  gives  vigor  and  to  the  powerless  he  increases 
strength;  youths  may  faint  and  grow  weary;  young  warriors 
may  stumble,  but  they  who  wait  for  Yahweh  renew  their 
vigor;  they  put  forth  as  it  were  eagles'  wings;  they  run 
and  are  never  weary;  they  go  onward  and  are  never  faint."1 
In  similar  passages  Israel  or  Zion  is  again  and  again  exhorted 
to  look  to  Yahweh  as  the  true  source  of  strength,  the  one 
who  is  about  to  intervene  for  the  redemption  of  his  people. 
And  this  means  that  exiled  Israel  is  about  to  return  to  its 
own  land.  It  is  for  this  that  a  voice  is  heard  commanding 
to  make  a  highway  through  the  desert;  Yahweh  at  the  head 
of  his  people,  like  a  shepherd  leading  his  flock,  will  make  his 

1  Isaiah  40  :  27-31;  cf.  41:  8-20;  51:  17  ff.;  52  : 1-6.  I  have  used 
Cheyne's  excellent  translation  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  Printed  in  Colors 
(1898). 


254  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

triumphal  march  back  to  his  chosen  dwelling.  Jerusalem's 
long  period  of  mourning  is  ended;  she  has  received  the  full 
recompense  for  her  sins;  forgiveness  and  restoration  must 
follow. 

Since  Israel  is  in  virtual  slavery  its  deliverance  is  a  real 
redemption,  a  buying  back  of  the  bondman.  The  frequent 
title  which  Yahweh  gives  himself  is  that  of  Redeemer.  This 
word,  however,  has  not  the  full  meaning  which  Christian 
theology  is  accustomed  to  give  it.  It  properly  denotes  the 
next  of  kin,  on  whom  devolves  the  duty  of  avenging  a  man's 
quarrel  or  of  ransoming  him  from  captivity  if  he  has  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.1  Such  a  kinsman  is  Yahweh — 
he  will  bring  his  people  out  of  their  slavery,  and  he  will 
punish  their  enemies.  Their  present  state  is,  to  be  sure, 
low  enough — it  is  a  people  spoiled  and  plundered,  they  are 
all  snared  in  dungeons  and  hid  in  prison-houses;  they  are 
become  a  spoil  and  there  is  no  rescuer;  a  plunder  and  there 
is  none  to  say:  Restore!  (42  :  22.)  "  Yet  now  says  Yahweh 
thy  Creator,  O  Jacob,  and  thy  Fashioner,  O  Israel:  Fear 
not,  I  redeem  thee;  I  call  thee  by  name,  mine  thou  art" 
(43  :  1).  And  the  Redeemer  is  also  the  avenger.  The  op- 
pressing power  is  Babylon,  and  she  is  to  suffer  what  she  has 
inflicted  on  others.  Her  gods  will  be  carried  away  with  the 
other  spoil  of  the  city;  she  herself,  the  tender  and  delicate, 
once  a  queen  who  boasted  that  she  has  never  submitted  to 
a  master  is  to  be  humiliated  like  the  lowest  slave :  "  Now  hear 
this,  O  voluptuous  one,  who  sittest  securely,  who  sayest  in 
thy  heart:  I,  and  none  other;  I  shall  not  sit  in  widowhood 
nor  know  the  loss  of  children — both  these  shall  come  to  thee 
in  a  moment,  in  the  same  day,  loss  of  children  and  widow- 
hood; in  full  measure  shall  they  come  upon  thee"  (47 : 8/.). 
To  accomplish  this  purpose  upon  the  ancient  enemy  Yahweh 
himself  will  intervene  as  a  warrior,  rousing  himself  to  mighty 
deeds  and  raising  the  battle  shout  (42  :  13/.). 

The  human  instrument  of  this  vengeance  is  purposely  left 

1  The  Hebrew  term  is  go'el,  which  occurs  nine  times  in  these  chapters. 
The  verb  from  which  it  is  derived  is  found  five  times. 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  255 

obscure.  An  unnamed  deliverer  is  alluded  to  in  one  passage 
and  his  appearance  is  propounded  as  a  riddle  for  the  false 
gods  and  their  worshippers:  "Who  was  it  that  roused  up 
from  the  east  him  on  whose  steps  victory  attends,  that  gives 
up  peoples  before  him  and  into  kings  strikes  terror?  His 
sword  makes  them  like  dust,  his  bow  like  driven  stubble; 
he  pursues  them,  passes  on  in  safety,  the  path  with  his  feet 
he  treads  not"  (41  :  2/.).  The  traditional  interpretation  of 
this  passage  makes  it  refer  to  Cyrus  and  the  conquests  of 
Persian  power  under  his  leadership,  and,  in  fact,  Cyrus  is 
mentioned  by  name  in  two  verses  in  close  juxtaposition 
(44  :  28;  45  :  1).  It  is  a  question,  however,  whether  these 
two  references  are  not  later  insertions  into  our  text,  the 
product  of  the  Jewish  tradition  which  made  heathen  kings 
the  nursing  fathers  of  the  restored  temple.  It  is  contrary  to 
our  author's  habit  to  name  specifically  the  persons  whom  he 
has  in  mind.  The  most  that  we  can  say  is  that  he  has  the 
expectation  of  a  deliverer  who  will  accomplish  all  Yahweh's 
will  upon  the  nations  and  bring  back  the  exiles  to  their  home. 
It  is  even  possible  that  he  had  the  personified  Israel  in  mind 
as  this  instrument  of  Yahweh's  purpose:  "Behold,  I  have 
made  thee  a  new  sharp  threshing  instrument  having  teeth; 
thou  shalt  thresh  the  mountains  and  make  them  small,  and 
shalt  make  the  hills  as  chaff"  (41  :  15). 

Restoration  to  temporal  prosperity  is  not  so  prominent  in 
the  author's  thought  as  is  the  spiritual  blessing  which  is  to 
come  in  the  new  time.  The  wiping  out  of  the  load  of  guilt 
which  has  oppressed  the  people  is  frequently  emphasised.  The 
punishment  had  been  deserved:  "Thy  first  fathers  sinned, 
and  thy  mediators  rebelled  against  me,  and  thy  princes 
profaned  my  sanctuary;  so  I  gave  up  Jacob  to  the  ban  and 
Israel  to  contumely"  (43  :  28).  Yet  in  the  midst  of  the  in- 
dictment Yahweh  pauses  to  declare:  "Yet  I  am  he  who  blots 
out  thy  rebellions  and  thy  sins  I  remember  not"  (43  :  25). 
And  punishment  is  not  a  mere  mechanical  process  of  balancing 
a  certain  amount  of  guilt  against  an  equal  amount  of  suffer- 
ing; it  is  a  purifying  process,  purging  out  the  baser  metal  in 


256  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  furnace  of  affliction  (48  :  10).  To  take  a  New  Testa- 
ment passage  as  the  expression  of  the  writer's  thought  we 
may  say  that  he  regarded  Israel  as  thus  made  a  vessel  of 
honour  fit  for  the  Master's  use.  Israel  is  an  instrument  for 
accomplishing  a  larger  purpose  than  has  yet  appeared :  "  By 
myself  have  I  sworn,  a  true  word  has  gone  out  of  my  mouth, 
a  word  that  shall  not  be  recalled:  That  to  me  every  knee 
shall  bow,  every  tongue  shall  swear "  (45  :  21-23).  It  is 
in  this  universalism  that  our  author  advances  beyond  all  his 
predecessors.  By  what  process  is  his  hope  to  be  realised? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  figure 
which  appears  at  intervals  throughout  the  book  and  which 
receives  the  name  Servant  of  Yahweh.  He  is  first  intro- 
duced to  us  as  one  gentle  in  his  method,  who  will  not  quench 
the  dimly  burning  wick  but  yet  who  will  courageously  set 
forth  the  Law  so  that  for  his  instruction  the  far  lands  will 
wait  (42  :  1-4).  More  fully  he  describes  his  own  mission: 
"Hearken  ye  far  countries  unto  me  and  listen  ye  distant 
peoples;  Yahweh  has  called  me  from  the  womb;  from  my 
mother's  lap  has  he  celebrated  my  name;  he  made  my 
mouth  like  a  sharp  sword,  in  the  shadow  of  his  hand  he  hid 
me;  he  made  me  a  polished  shaft,  in  his  quiver  he  stored  me. 
He  said  unto  me:  Thou  art  my  servant,  Israel,  in  whom  I 
will  glorify  myself;  so  I  was  honored  in  the  eyes  of  Yahweh 
and  my  God  became  my  strength.  But  as  for  me,  I  said: 
I  have  labored  in  vain;  to  no  purpose  have  I  spent  my 
strength;  nevertheless  my  right  is  with  Yahweh  and  my 
recompense  is  with  my  God.  And  now  Yahweh  says:  It 
is  too  light  a  thing  to  raise  up  the  tribes  of  Jacob,  and  to 
restore  the  preserved  of  Israel;  so  I  set  thee  as  a  light  of 
the  nations,  that  my  deliverance  may  reach  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth"  (49  : 1-6).  In  both  passages  we  see  an  ideal 
prophet  pictured,  one  who  will  carry  Yahweh's  message  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  In  his  case,  as  in  the  actual  experience 
of  the  preacher  of  righteousness,  the  mission  involves  suffer- 
ing on  the  part  of  the  one  who  undertakes  it:  "My  back  I 
gave  to  the  smiters,  and  my  cheeks  to  them  that  pulled  out 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  257 

the  beard;  my  face  I  hid  not  from  insult  and  spitting" 
(50  :  6).  The  culmination  is  found  in  the  description  of  the 
suffering  servant  giving  his  soul  even  to  death  (52  : 13  to 
53  :  12). 

Opinion  is  still  divided  as  to  this  ideal  missionary,  whether 
he  is  a  single  individual,  historical  (of  the  past  or  who  is  yet 
to  come),  or  whether  he  is  a  personification  of  a  group. 
There  seems  to  be  a  growing  consensus  in  favour  of  the 
latter  interpretation.  And  the  group  thus  personified  and 
idealised  must  be  Israel,  not  the  empirical  Israel  in  the  midst 
of  which  the  author  lived,  but  the  ideal  Israel,  the  faithful 
few  who  were  chosen  of  God  to  carry  his  message  and  to 
endure  on  his  behalf.  This  would  seem  to  be  evident  from 
such  passages  as  the  one  already  quoted,  where  the  servant 
is  directly  addressed  by  the  name  Israel  (49  :  3).  And 
again:  "But  thou  Israel  my  servant,  Jacob  whom  I  have 
chosen  ...  to  whom  I  said:  My  servant  art  thou;  I  have 
chosen  and  not  rejected  thee"  (41 :  8-10).  The  only  diffi- 
culty in  the  identification  is  made  by  the  sharp  contrast  be- 
tween the  ideal  and  the  actual.  In  the  New  Testament  use 
of  the  word  "  church  "  we  find  the  same  double  meaning.  The 
ideal  church,  the  bride  of  Christ,  is  without  spot  or  wrinkle 
or  any  such  thing.  But  the  church  which  actually  exists  is 
made  up  of  frail  and  fallible  men  who  too  often  must  be  re- 
buked for  their  unfaithfulness  and  immorality.  There  is  an 
Israel  within  Israel  to  which  alone  the  description  of  the 
servant  can  be  applied.1 

This  distinction  between  the  ideal  and  the  real  Israel — 
that  is,  between  the  loyal  and  obedient  kernel  of  the  nation 
and  the  empirical  mass,  careless  of  its  privileges — throws 
light  on  another  problem.  Some  of  the  older  prophets  were 
perplexed  by  the  fact  that  the  innocent  so  often  suffer  with 
the  guilty.  Jeremiah  had  questioned  Yahweh  as  to  the 
justice  of  his  action  just  on  this  ground;  Ezekiel  had  solved 

1  Whether  the  figure  of  the  Servant  has  not  borrowed  some  features 
from  an  ancient  mythical  character,  as  is  maintained  by  Gressmann 
and  others,  is  not  clearly  made  out. 


258  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  problem  by  ignoring  some  of  the  facts.  Our  author,  as 
we  have  seen,  believes  in  the  purifying  nature  of  affliction, 
but  he  goes  one  step  further  in  that  he  sees  suffering  to  be 
the  way  in  which  a  missionary  must  walk  in  order  to  carry 
out  his  mission.  In  the  passage  which  forms  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  Servant  poems  Yahweh  himself  makes  this  plain. 
Here  he  calls  attention  to  the  Servant  as  one  who  has  suf- 
fered deeply — "Marred  was  his  appearance  out  of  all  human 
likeness,  and  his  form  out  of  semblance  to  the  sons  of  men." 
But  as  marked  as  the  suffering  will  be  the  obeisance  of 
many:  "Before  him  kings  will  be  awe-struck,  for  that 
which  had  not  been  told  them  they  see"  (52  :  14). 1  At  this 
point  the  gentile  kings  themselves  take  up  the  description. 
They  confess  that  they  had  thought  the  Servant  smitten  of 
God  and  afflicted.  Now  they  see  that  he  was,  indeed,  af- 
flicted but  not  for  his  own  sake;  the  innocent  suffered  for 
the  guilty:  "Surely  he  bore  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sor- 
rows" (53  :  4).  The  smitten  Israel  even  goes  down  to  death 
in  quiet  resignation  to  the  will  of  God.  But  death  is  not 
the  end;  a  resurrection  is  to  follow  so  that  the  Servant  shall 
see  the  fruit  of  his  labour.  Since  the  only  resurrection  of 
which  we  have  had  a  hint  up  to  this  point  is  the  resurrection 
of  the  nation,  foretold  by  Ezekiel,  we  must  suppose  that 
this  is  the  conception  cherished  by  the  author. 

This,  then,  is  the  wonderful  plan  of  Yahweh  in  the  af- 
fliction of  his  people.  He  will  not  only  punish  them  for 
their  sins;  he  will  not  only  purify  them  from  their  evil  de- 
sires; he  will  bring  all  the  world  to  the  conviction  that 
Israel  is  his  Servant,  suffering  for  others  and  thus  carrying 
out  his  mission.  The  gentiles  will  recognise  that  severity 
toward  the  Servant  is  an  evidence  of  grace  for  them.  They 
will  be  moved  to  receive  instruction  at  the  mouth  of  the 
revived  Israel,  will  be  convinced  that  Yahweh  is  God  and 

1  Cf.  49  :  7/.:  "Thus  saith  Yahweh  to  him  whom  man  despiseth,  to 
him  whom  the  nations  abhor,  to  the  servant  of  rulers:  Kings  shall  see 
and  arise,  princes  and  they  shall  worship;  because  of  Yahweh  who  is 
faithful,  even  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  who  has  chosen  thee." 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  259 

none  else,  and  so  the  glory  of  Yahweh  will  shine  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  "This  is  the  salvation  that  is  to  go  forth,  the 
deliverance  that  is  to  endure  forever"  (51  :  4/.).  The  de- 
scription of  the  suffering  Servant  is  followed,  therefore,  by 
an  invitation  to  the  desolated  Zion  to  triumph  in  the  pros- 
pect of  coming  glory  (54).  The  covenant  to  be  established 
will  include  the  gentiles:  "Thou  shalt  call  people  whom 
thou  knowest  not,  people  who  know  not  thee  shall  run  unto 
thee,  because  of  Yahweh  thy  God,  and  for  Israel's  Holy 
One,  for  he  has  glorified  thee"  (55  :  3-5).  This  thought  of 
the  mediatorial  mission  of  Israel  is  the  most  important  con- 
tribution of  our  author  to  enlightened  religion. 

It  is  only  natural  that  the  hopes  here  expressed  should 
take  on  a  transcendental  colouring.  The  expectation  that 
the  return  of  Yahweh  to  Palestine  will  be  accompanied  by 
a  transformation  of  the  land  is  certainly  as  old  as  Ezekiel. 
Our  author  gives  glowing  expression  to  this  hope.  The 
wilderness  is  to  become  an  Eden,  the  waste  places  of  Zion 
will  become  like  the  garden  of  Yahweh  (51 :  3).  The  new 
Jerusalem  will  shine  with  supernal  brightness:  "Thou  af- 
flicted, storm-tossed,  unconsoled;  behold,  I  will  set  thy 
bases  in  rubies,  and  will  found  thee  with  sapphires;  I  will 
make  thy  battlements  of  jasper,  thy  gates  of  carbuncles,  and 
all  thy  borders  of  jewels"  (54:11/.).  Christian  interpre- 
ters are  tempted  to  apply  the  description  to  the  heavenly 
Jerusalem,  the  abode  of  the  blessed,  but  our  author  has  in 
mind  the  earthly  city,  the  dwelling  of  Yahweh,  transformed 
by  his  presence:  "No  more  will  the  sun  serve  thee  for  light 
nor  for  brightness  will  the  moon  illuminate  thee;  but  Yah- 
weh will  be  to  thee  an  everlasting  light,  and  thy  God  thine 
adornment"  (60:  19).  Nations  will  come  to  this  light  and 
kings  to  the  brightness  of  the  rising  (60 :  3).  Into  this  sacred 
city  "no  one  that  is  unclean  or  uncircumcised  shall  enter" 
(52  :  1);  its  people  shall  be  all  righteous,  the  redeemed  of 
Yahweh,  a  sacred  people  (60  :  21;  62  :  12).  The  suprem- 
acy of  Israel  will  consist  in  its  priestly  office:  "You  shall 
be  called  priests  of  Yahweh;  servants  of  our  God  will  they 


260  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

name  you"  (61 :  6).  In  this  way  Jerusalem  will  become  a 
joy  to  the  whole  earth,  for  all  flesh  will  come  and  worship 
there  (62  :  3;  65  :  18;  66  :  23).  In  the  land  of  Israel  the 
wolf  and  the  lamb  will  lie  down  together:  "They  shall  not 
hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  sacred  mountain,  says  Yahweh" 
(65  :  25).  The  life  of  man  will  be  prolonged,  so  that  he 
who  dies  at  a  hundred  years  of  age  will  be  thought  to  be 
untimely  cut  off  (65  :  20). 

Whether  the  various  elements  of  this  picture  could  be 
combined  into  one  consistent  whole  may  be  doubted.  What 
interests  us  especially  is  the  author's  conception  of  religion. 
This  we  see  to  be  not  merely  national  but  also  individual. 
Not  only  is  the  afflicted  and  storm-tossed  Zion  encouraged, 
but  the  depressed  member  of  the  community  receives  a  mes- 
sage of  cheer.  The  proselyte  who  fears  that  he  may  be 
shut  out  of  the  company  of  the  faithful  because  of  his  for- 
eign blood,  and  the  eunuch  who  feels  that  his  physical  mu- 
tilation unfits  him  for  the  service  of  Yahweh,  are  singled 
out  for  encouragement  (56  :  1-8).  Those  who  hunger  and 
thirst  for  righteousness  receive  their  message :  "  On  high  as 
the  Holy  One  do  I  abide,  and  with  him  who  is  crushed  and 
lowly  in  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  lowly,  and  to  re- 
vive the  heart  of  those  who  are  crushed"  (57  :  15).  And  the 
essence  of  religion  is  seen  to  be  faith:  "They  that  wait  for 
Yahweh  shall  not  be  ashamed"  (40  :  31;  49  :  23).  "Whoso 
walks  in  darkness  with  no  brightness  of  dawn;  let  him  trust 
in  the  name  of  Yahweh,  and  lean  upon  his  God"  (50  : 10). 
Faith  must  issue  in  service,  but  not  the  formal  service  of 
the  ritualist.  The  fast  that  Yahweh  chooses  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  external  observance :  "  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have 
chosen,  says  Yahweh:  To  loose  the  fetters  of  injustice;  to 
untie  the  bands  of  violence;  to  set  at  liberty  those  that  are 
crushed;  to  break  asunder  every  yoke?  Is  it  not  to  break 
thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and  to  bring  the  homeless  to  thy 
house?  When  thou  seest  the  naked  to  cover  him,  and  not 
to  hide  thyself  from  thine  own  flesh?  Then  thy  light  shall 
break  forth  as  the  dawn;  thy  wounds  will  quickly  heal  over; 


SPIRITUALISATION  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  261 

thy  righteousness  will  go  before  thee,  and  Yahweh's  glory 
will  be  thy  rearward"  (58  :  5-8). 

Apparently  there  were  few  who  were  prepared  to  appre- 
ciate this  message.  The  little  community  had  its  full  share 
of  unbelievers  and  scoffers.  Some  seek  satisfaction  in  out- 
worn superstitions:  "They  sit  among  the  graves  and  lodge 
in  vaults;  they  eat  swine's  flesh  and  the  broth  of  abomi- 
nable things  is  in  their  vessels;  they  say:  Stand  by  thyself; 
come  not  near  me  lest  I  consecrate  thee  [by  my  touch]."1 
No  wonder  that  the  prophet  cries  out:  "The  hand  of  Yah- 
weh  is  not  too  short  to  deliver,  nor  his  ear  too  heavy  to 
hear;  but  your  iniquities  have  become  a  barrier  between 
you  and  your  God,  and  your  sins  have  hidden  his  face  from 
you,  so  that  he  hears  not.  For  your  hands  are  defiled  with 
blood,  and  your  fingers  with  iniquity;  your  lips  speak  lies 
and  your  tongue  utters  depravity;  none  sues  in  truthfulness, 
and  none  pleads  with  honesty;  men  trust  in  pretence  and 
speak  falsehood;  they  conceive  trouble  and  bring  forth  mis- 
chief. Therefore  has  our  right  been  far  from  us,  and  redress 
does  not  overtake  us;  we  wait  for  light  but  behold  dark- 
ness; for  bright  beams  but  we  walk  in  gloom"  (59  :  1-4,  9). 
The  contrast  between  the  lofty  ideal  cherished  by  the  writer 
and  the  reality  by  which  he  found  himself  confronted  ex- 
presses itself  not  only  in  this  rebuke  but  also  in  the  almost 
agonising  prayer  which  follows.  In  prayer  the  believer 
finds  his  comfort,  and  faith  reasserts  itself  after  the  struggle 
with  depression. 

This  contrast  between  the  expectation  of  a  divine  inter- 
vention and  the  actual  condition  of  the  chosen  people  is 
characteristic  of  Judaism,  and  the  frequent  confession  of 
sinfulness  which  we  find  in  later  documents  only  echoes  this 
prayer.  Yet,  since  we  are  saved  by  hope,  the  postexilic 
community  continued  to  cherish  the  vision  of  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth.  One  of  the  best  expressions  of  this  hope  is 

1  Incubation  at  the  shrines  of  dead  heroes  is  alluded  to,  65  :  4,  and 
the  abominable  things  that  are  eaten  at  these  mysteries  include  mice 
as  well  as  swine,  66  :  17. 


262  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

in  a  little  paragraph  which  has  been  preserved  for  us  both 
in  the  book  of  Isaiah  and  in  the  book  of  Micah.  Its  post- 
exilic  origin  needs  no  demonstration.  It  tells  how  in  the 
good  time  to  come  "the  mountain  of  Yahweh's  house  will 
be  established  as  highest  of  the  mountains,  and  will  be  ex- 
alted above  the  hills;  and  all  nations  will  stream  unto  it, 
and  many  peoples  will  set  forth  and  say:  Come  let  us  go 
up  to  the  mountain  of  Yahweh,  to  the  house  of  the  God  of 
Jacob;  that  he  may  instruct  us  out  of  his  precepts,  and  that 
we  may  walk  in  his  paths;  for  from  Zion  goes  forth  instruc- 
tion and  the  word  of  Yahweh  from  Jerusalem.  Then  will 
he  judge  between  the  nations,  and  give  decision  to  many 
peoples;  and  they  will  beat  their  swords  into  mattocks  and 
their  spears  into  pruning  hooks;  nation  will  not  lift  up 
sword  against  nation,  neither  will  they  learn  war  any  more'* 
(Isaiah  2  :  2-4).  Universal  peace,  Jerusalem  the  capital  of 
the  earth,  the  law  of  Yahweh  taught  to  the  nations  and 
obeyed  by  them — such  was  the  Messianic  hope  in  its  most 
spiritual  expression.  The  special  relation  of  Yahweh  to 
Israel  is  only  the  first  act  of  a  great  drama  whose  denou- 
ment  will  be  the  spread  of  true  religion  to  all  nations.  Israel 
is  Yahweh's  messenger,  destined  to  overcome  the  world,  not 
by  the  sword  but  by  the  word. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION 

THE  spiritual  thoughts  of  Deutero-Isaiah  were  appre- 
hended by  few  of  his  countrymen.  His  universalism  was 
lost  sight  of  in  the  conflicts  between  parties  within  the  Jewish 
community.  How  bitter  these  conflicts  were  is  made  known 
by  the  Samaritan  schism  and  by  the  opposition  to  gentile 
wives.  In  Jerusalem  the  stricter  party  organised  themselves 
in  a  church  state,  of  which  the  high  priest  was  head,  and  the 
main  object  of  effort  was  to  keep  the  sacred  city  from  defile- 
ment. No  doubt  the  Messianic  hope  animated  those  who 
observed  the  Law  and  who  excluded  the  foreigner,  but  it 
was  the  Messianic  hope  in  its  most  particularistic  form — the 
salvation  to  come  must  belong  to  the  seed  of  Israel,  and  they 
alone  would  share  in  it  who  kept  themselves  from  contam- 
ination. Everything  else  was  under  a  taboo;  it  was,  in 
ecclesiastical  language,  an  abomination. 

Fortunately,  we  are  allowed  to  see  that  this  rigid  exclu- 
siveness  did  not  go  without  protest.  Two  little  books  which 
have  found  a  place  in  the  canon  reveal  a  broader  spirit. 
These  are  Ruth  and  Jonah,  both  of  them  works  of  fiction, 
though  possibly  both  have  made  use  of  floating  traditions, 
even  mythological  in  their  nature.  The  heroine  of  one  book 
is  a  Moabitess,  belonging,  therefore,  to  the  race  against 
which  the  lines  were  most  strictly  drawn  in  the  postexilic 
community.  She  is  pictured  as  a  model  woman  in  her  devo- 
tion to  Israel  and  also  to  the  God  of  Israel.  She  is  recog- 
nised by  the  Israelite  community  of  Bethlehem  as  a  devout 
woman,  is  taken  to  wife  by  one  of  the  leading  members  of 
that  community,  and  becomes  the  ancestress  of  David.  The 

263 


264  THE  RELIGION  QF  ISRAEL 

lesson  is  so  plain  that  it  needs  no  interpreter.  If  marriage 
with  gentiles  were  so  contrary  to  the  mind  of  Yahweh  as 
was  held  by  the  exclusive  party,  he  would  not  have  so  blessed 
the  marriage  of  Boaz  and  Ruth. 

In  contrast  with  the  mild  idyllic  tone  of  Ruth  is  the  satire 
of  Jonah.  Here  we  read  of  the  prophet  who  is  commissioned 
to  preach  to  Nineveh,  the  typical  heathen  city.  The  task  is 
not  to  his  liking,  not  because  of  any  danger  that  he  fears, 
but  because  the  preaching  may  be  followed  by  repentance 
and  the  city  may  be  spared,  whereas  he  longs  to  see  it  de- 
stroyed. He,  therefore,  tries  to  flee  to  a  foreign  country 
where  he  will  be  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  Yahweh.  Mirac- 
ulously he  is  brought  back  and  forced  to  carry  out  his  mission. 
What  he  has  expected  follows — the  city  repents  and  is 
spared.  By  the  gourd  over  whose  loss  he  grieves  he  is  taught 
the  lesson  of  compassion.  The  whole  is  an  object-lesson  to 
the  narrow  and  embittered  Jews,  who  would  be  willing  to 
see  no  matter  what  suffering  inflicted  on  their  fellow  men  if 
only  the  hostile  powers  of  the  gentiles  might  be  destroyed. 
The  book  was  admitted  to  the  canon  not  because  of  this 
lesson  but  because  it  was  read  as  a  wonder  book,  one  of  the 
crowning  evidences  of  the  power  of  Yahweh. 

The  Messianic  glory  was  delayed,  and,  while  every  hope  of 
its  immediate  coming  met  with  disappointment,  a  painful 
question  arose  in  the  minds  of  believers.  Even  supposing 
that  perfect  righteousness  will  rule  when  the  good  time 
comes,  what  is  the  ad  interim  principle  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment? Ezekiel,  as  we  know,  had  defended  the  theory  of 
eudemonism;  the  man  who  does  right  will  be  rewarded  by 
prosperity;  the  man  who  sins  will  be  taken  out  of  the  world 
by  an  early  death.  The  theory  was  stated  so  uncompro- 
misingly that  it  seemed  to  challenge  investigation  into  the 
facts.  In  the  face  of  facts  could  this  theory  maintain  itself? 
The  Chronicler  was  able  to  rewrite  history  so  as  to  show 
that  sin  had  always  been  followed  by  misfortune,  not  only 
for  the  nation  but  also  for  individuals.  In  his  narrative 
he  records  that  Asa  died  of  gout  because  he  sought  not  to 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  265 

Yahweh  but  to  the  physicians,  and  the  ships  of  Jehoshaphat 
were  wrecked  on  account  of  the  king's  alliance  with  the  un- 
godly Ahab.  On  the  other  hand,  Manasseh's  long  reign  was 
his  reward  for  repentance.  But  it  is  easier  to  write  history 
to  fit  the  theory  than  it  is  to  discover  the  theory  in  actual 
operation  in  the  world  around  us.  The  Jews  could  not 
claim  that  piety  and  good  fortune  always  go  hand  in  hand. 
The  righteous  servants  of  Yahweh  were  too  often  poor  and 
persecuted,  while  the  heathen,  who  forgot  God,  were  often 
the  ones  blessed  with  riches,  children,  and  long  life — the 
three  best  gifts.  Something  of  the  complaint  that  the  arro- 
gant worldlings  are  happy,  and  that,  therefore,  it  is  vain  to 
serve  God,  we  have  met  in  Malachi.  The  longer  the  Messi- 
anic time  was  delayed,  the  more  acute  the  problem  became. 

The  perplexity  of  the  pious  is  revealed  to  us  by  the  little 
book  which  bears  the  name  of  Habakkuk.  The  author  wit- 
nessed the  remorseless  advance  of  a  conquering  army,  per- 
haps that  of  Alexander,  and  questioned  whether  the  great 
overturning  was,  in  fact,  working  out  the  purposes  of  Yahweh. 
To  all  appearance  the  cruel  invader  was  following  his  own 
lust  for  blood  and  plunder.  So  far  from  recognising  any  God, 
he  sacrifices  to  his  weapons  as  though  they  were  the  source 
of  his  power;  his  strength  is  his  god  (Hab.  1  :  15/.).  So  the 
prophet  cries  out  against  injustice :  "  How  can  Yahweh  who 
cannot  look  upon  iniquity  be  silent  when  the  wicked  swallows 
up  the  righteous?"  To  these  questionings  the  author  has  no 
answer  except  that  Yahweh  must  be  just  in  spite  of  all  ap- 
pearances to  the  contrary:  "Yahweh  is  in  his  holy  temple 
and  all  the  earth  will  at  length  be  silent  before  him"  (2  :  20). 
The  heathen  have  no  God  to  compare  with  him,  and  the 
prophet's  faith  takes  hold  of  this  fact  and  will  wait  for  the 
time  of  revealing,  even  though  the  fig-tree  should  fail  and 
the  vine  refuse  its  fruit  (3  :  17-19).  The  attitude  of  waiting 
upon  God  for  the  fuller  revelation  is  often  urged  upon  the 
believer  in  this  period  (cf.  Micah  7  :  7  ff.). 

This  is  rational  enough,  so  far  as  the  fate  of  nations  is 
concerned,  for  it  may  well  be  that  the  time  of  a  nation's  pro- 


266  THE  KELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

bation  is  extended  through  centuries.  But  the  lot  of  the 
individual  is  still  a  problem.  If  this  lot  is  apportioned  ac- 
cording to  justice  we  ought  to  discover  the  fact  in  the  men 
whom  we  meet  day  by  day.  That  we  do  not  so  discover  it 
is  the  conviction  of  the  author  who  wrote  the  book  of  Job. 
In  this  book  we  find  various  elements  combined,  but  all  bear 
on  this  one  problem.  The  example  which  the  author  brings 
before  us  is  that  of  a  righteous  man  greatly  afflicted.  Ac- 
cording to  the  prologue  and  epilogue,  which  are  in  prose, 
this  man  Job  suffered  the  extremes  of  fortune,  but  after  a 
time  of  probation  was  restored  to  health  and  happiness. 
The  story  thus  briefly  told  furnishes  the  framework  within 
which  the  author  of  the  poem  discusses  his  problem.  The 
problem  is:  Why  should  the  righteous  man  suffer?  One 
answer  is  given  by  the  prologue  itself  where  Satan  insti- 
gates the  affliction.  His  theory  is  that  virtue  is  mere  self- 
interest,  and  that  if  Job  is  put  to  the  test  his  alleged  right- 
eousness will  be  discovered  to  be  no  more  than  this.  When 
the  man  is  tried  by  loss  of  fortune  and  of  family,  and  stands 
the  test,  the  accuser  still  holds  to  his  theory;  if  Job  was 
upright  in  the  first  instance  because  he  was  rewarded  for  it, 
his  present  steadfastness  is  due  to  nothing  but  fear.  If  he 
is  attacked  by  a  disease  which  shall  take  away  his  hope  of 
life,  and  which  will,  therefore,  remove  the  fear  of  death,  then 
he  will  appear  in  his  true  colours.  This  second  test  is  there- 
fore applied  without  shaking  the  sufferer's  integrity.  His 
devotion  to  Yahweh  is  seen  to  be  sincere. 

The  book  might  have  ended  here  with  the  triumph  of  dis- 
interested virtue.  Possibly  a  version  of  the  story  was  in 
circulation  in  which  this  was  brought  out.  But  in  our  form 
of  the  book  the  heavenly  wager,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  has 
no  clear  result — Satan  does  not  confess  that  he  is  defeated, 
nor  does  Yahweh  point  out  the  reality  of  virtue.  The  author 
of  the  poem  is  too  much  interested  in  the  experiences  of  his 
hero  to  dwell  upon  this  point.  What  he  brings  out  is  the 
human  document,  the  action  of  the  soul  of  a  man  thus  put 
to  the  test.  Job  has  no  knowledge  of  the  heavenly  wager, 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  267 

and  the  motive  of  the  divine  dealing  with  him  is  wholly  con- 
cealed. The  perplexity  into  which  he  is  thrown  by  his  ac- 
cumulated misfortunes  is  increased  by  the  conduct  of  his 
friends,  who  claim  that  they  can  speak  for  God  and  justify 
his  ways,  and  who  do  this  in  terms  which  both  injure  and 
insult  the  sufferer.  The  object  of  the  book,  then,  is  not  to 
set  forth  a  theory,  but  to  present  a  living  picture  of  human 
experience.  And  this  is  broad  human  experience,  not  that 
of  the  Jew  alone.  Job  is,  in  fact,  not  presented  as  a  Jew, 
and  the  author  has  purposely  left  distinctly  Jewish  obser- 
vances out  of  view. 

What  we  find  in  the  book,  then,  is  a  human  soul  under 
severe  trial,  wrestling  with  its  doubts,  and  coming  out  at  last 
measurably  at  peace  with  its  God  in  spite  of  the  mystery 
which  surrounds  his  dealings.  The  real  trial  comes  when  the 
sufferer  receives  the  visit  of  his  friends.  Terrible  privations 
and  more  terrible  disease  have  not  shaken  him;  but  when 
his  friends  come  and  sit  silent  before  him  he  knows  why 
they  find  no  word  of  comfort.  Representing  the  popular 
theology,  they  are  applying  their  theory  of  retribution  to 
him.  They  can  account  for  so  signal  an  affliction  only  by 
supposing  that  the  one  who  is  visited  by  it  has  been  an 
aggravated  offender — all  the  more  that  his  former  conduct 
was  ostensibly  virtuous.  Not  only  a  flagrant  sinner,  but  a 
consummate  hypocrite — this  is  their  judgment.  This  it  is 
which  shuts  their  mouths  when  they  attempt  to  condole 
with  the  sufferer.  The  sting  is  felt  by  Job,  because  in  his 
days  of  prosperity  he  had  judged  in  much  the  same  way. 
He  had  accepted  his  good  fortune  as  evidence  that  God 
smiled  upon  him.  But  could  he  now  believe  that  God  was 
justly  angry  with  him?  Against  such  a  thought  his  con- 
science uttered  its  most  vigorous  protest.  What  confronted 
him  was  loss  of  his  faith  in  God. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  understand  the  violence  of 
his  language  as  he  curses  the  day  of  his  birth.  This  day 
he  would  blot  out  of  the  calendar,  because  it  had  seen  the 
birth  of  him,  miserable,  or  because  it  had  not  at  once  put 


268  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

an  end  to  him  when  he  first  saw  the  light.  But,  since  this 
had  not  occurred,  his  only  hope  is  for  a  speedy  ending  of  this 
wretched  life.  The  only  rest  for  the  troubled  is  the  grave, 
and  this  is  what  he  longs  for:  "Wherefore  is  light  given  to 
him  that  is  in  misery,  and  life  to  the  bitter  of  soul?  To 
those  who  long  for  death  but  it  comes  not,  and  dig  for  it 
more  than  for  hid  treasures?"  The  friends  find  in  these  wild 
utterances  only  the  ravings  of  one  who  is  under  the  curse  of 
God,  and  they  are  confirmed  in  their  condemnation  of  the 
speaker.  They  are  so  possessed  by  their  theological  theory 
that  they  cannot  do  him  justice.  This  is  shown  distinctly  by 
the  speech  of  Eliphaz,  the  most  moderate  of  the  three.  He 
evidently  endeavours  to  deal  gently  with  his  friend.  He  be- 
gins by  pointing  out  how  Job  has  comforted  others  in  their 
affliction,  and  how  he  ought  to  apply  the  same  method  to 
himself:  "Behold  thou  hast  instructed  many  and  hast 
strengthened  the  weak  hands.  Thy  words  have  upholden 
him  that  was  falling,  and  thou  hast  made  firm  the  feeble 
knees.  But  now  it  is  come  unto  thee  and  thou  faintest,  it 
toucheth  thee  and  thou  art  troubled!"  The  sufferer  is  re- 
minded that  his  own  theory  had  been  that  the  innocent 
could  not  perish:  "According  as  I  have  seen,  they  that  plow 
iniquity  and  sow  trouble  reap  the  same"  (4  :  4/.). 

Eliphaz  is  confident  that  he  has  received  his  doctrine  from 
a  higher  source.  A  vision  of  the  night  had  appeared  to  him 
and  said:  "Can  a  human  being  be  righteous  before  God,  or 
a  man  be  pure  before  his  maker?  Behold  he  puts  no  trust 
in  his  servants,  and  his  angels  he  charges  with  error;  how 
much  more  the  dwellers  in  clay,  whose  foundation  is  in  the 
dust,  who  are  crushed  before  the  moth,  are  destroyed  be- 
tween morning  and  evening !"  (4:17-20.)  This  revelation, 
Eliphaz  thinks,  is  confirmed  by  observation  of  the  facts  of 
life.  No  doubt  the  facts  of  life  are  easily  made  to  teach 
what  one  believes,  and  the  speaker  is  able  to  describe  in 
vivid  terms  how  he  has  seen  the  wicked  take  root  and  then 
suddenly  be  destroyed.  The  practical  application  is  made 
by  an  exhortation  to  Job  to  repent  and  pray  to  God.  If 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  269 

he  will  only  do  this,  all  may  yet  be  well:  "At  destruction 
and  dearth  thou  shalt  laugh;  thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the 
stones  of  the  field,  and  the  wild  beasts  shall  be  at  peace 
with  thee;  thou  shalt  know  that  thy  tent  is  in  welfare  and 
shalt  visit  thy  fold  and  miss  nothing.  Thou  shalt  know 
also  that  thy  seed  shall  be  great  and  thine  offspring  like  the 
grass  of  the  earth;  thou  shalt  come  to  the  grave  in  a  full 
age  like  as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in  in  its  season.  Lo, 
this  have  we  searched  and  so  it  is;  hear  it  and  know  it  for 
thy  good"  (5  :  17-27). 

The  well-rounded  periods  reveal  a  man  with  a  settled 
theory  of  the  universe,  who  will  not  be  disturbed  by  mere 
facts.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  he  does  not  and  cannot  un- 
derstand Job's  state  of  mind.  His  sentences  uttered  with 
so  much  unction  sound  like  bitter  mockery  to  the  sufferer. 
How  can  a  man  in  the  power  of  fatal  disease  look  forward 
to  days  of  peace  and  security?  How  can  he  whose  children 
have  been  swept  into  the  grave  expect  his  offspring  to  be 
like  the  grass  of  the  earth?  To  exhort  the  man  of  conscious 
integrity  to  seek  God  in  penitence  is  to  urge  him  to  hypoc- 
risy. The  common  sinfulness  of  the  creatures  of  God  is  a 
mere  truism;  it  does  not  explain  why  one  of  them  should 
be  signalled  out  for  exceptional  severity.  What  Job  denies 
is  that  he  has  deserved  this  exceptional  treatment.  The 
whole  effect  of  Eliphaz's  exhortation  is  simply  to  confuse 
the  sufferer.  His  suffering  goes  beyond  the  common  experi- 
ence, for  he  is  made  the  direct  mark  of  the  divine  arrows. 
His  strength  cannot  hold  out  for  the  changed  fortune  to 
which  the  friends  would  have  him  look  forward,  even  if  it 
were  to  come.  Added  bitterness  comes  from  the  lack  of 
sympathy  on  the  part  of  his  friends  who  are  like  the  streams 
of  the  hot  countries — when  there  is  need  of  them  they  are 
found  to  have  vanished. 

In  a  somewhat  calmer  state  of  mind  the  hero  considers 
the  state  of  man.  This  is  like  the  lot  of  the  day-labourer, 
or  of  the  common  soldier — unremitting  toil,  with  no  hope 
for  the  future.  For  the  question  of  a  future  life  is  raised 


270  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

only  to  be  answered  in  the  negative:  "As  a  cloud  is  consumed 
and  vanishes  away,  so  he  that  goes  down  to  Sheol  comes 
up  no  more.  He  shall  return  no  more  to  his  house,  neither 
shall  his  place  know  him  any  more"  (7  :  9/.).  This  being 
so,  there  is  no  reason  why  Job  should  not  speak  out  all  his 
thought.  Gathering  boldness,  as  if  in  desperation,  he  expos- 
tulates with  God  for  the  way  in  which  he  is  treated:  "Am 
I  a  sea  or  sea-monster  that  thou  settest  a  watch  over  me?" 
(7  :  12.)  We  remember  that  the  sea  was  originally  a  hos- 
tile power,  a  great  dragon,  whose  subjugation  was  the  best 
evidence  of  the  power  of  the  Almighty  (Jer.  5  :  22).  Job's 
thought  is  that  he  is  too  puny  a  creature  to  be  treated  like 
the  rebellious  dragon,  made  the  direct  object  of  the  divine 
vengeance:  "If  I  have  sinned  what  do  I  unto  thee,  O  thou 
watcher  of  men?  Why  hast  thou  set  me  as  a  mark  for  thee 
so  that  I  am  a  burden  to  myself?  Why  dost  thou  not 
pardon  my  transgression  and  take  away  my  guilt  so  that  I 
might  lie  down  in  the  dust  and  thou  mightest  seek  me  dili- 
gently but  I  should  not  be?"  (7  :  20/.)  To  make  so  much 
of  any  possible  transgression  that  a  man  may  have  com- 
mitted seems  hardly  worth  while. 

Of  course  this  bold  protest  must  arouse  the  horror  of  the 
friends.  To  them  piety  means  an  anxious  fear  of  God,  which 
will,  above  all  things,  avoid  exciting  his  displeasure  by  crit- 
icism of  his  acts.  Job,  on  the  other  hand,  has  reached  a 
point  where  he  can  affirm  the  rights  of  man's  moral  judg- 
ment, even  in  the  face  of  God  himself.  Bildad  and  Zophar, 
the  other  two  friends,  restate  the  position  of  their  group  with 
more  bluntness  than  Eliphaz.  They  are  sure  that  they  have 
all  tradition  on  their  side  as  well  as  common  sense.  They 
argue  that  there  must  be  some  cause  for  the  afflictions  of 
men;  what  can  it  be  except  the  sins  of  men?  God  cannot 
pervert  justice — this  is  unthinkable.  To  this  Job  replies 
that  it  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  justice.  The  accused 
man,  brought  before  a  judge,  gets  a  verdict  condemning  or 
acquitting  him.  The  verdict  may  or  may  not  be  justice. 
If  you  mean  that  in  the  divine  court  no  one  can  reverse  the 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  271 

verdict,  that  needs  no  argument — from  that  court  there  is 
no  appeal.  But  it  may  not  follow  that  a  man  who  is  con- 
demned is  really  guilty.  The  friends  are  willing  to  declare 
the  verdict  right  just  because  it  has  been  pronounced  by 
God.  In  that  case  might  makes  right.  But  Job  cannot  rest 
in  this  thought;  he  must  inquire  whether  there  is  a  moral 
standard  to  which  God  himself  is  amenable.  The  fact  that 
his  hardships  indicate  a  judgment  of  God  against  him  does 
not  prove  that  he  is  really  guilty,  and  this  he  would  make 
plain  to  God  himself  if  he  could  only  come  before  him. 

It  is  clear  that  the  sufferer  is  now  possessed  by  a  longing 
to  set  himself  right  with  God.  His  physical  pains  are  lost 
sight  of  in  the  realisation  that  to  all  appearance  God  has 
misjudged  him.  To  be  under  that  condemnation  is  torture. 
Yet  even  if  he  were  given  the  opportunity  to  come  before 
God  and  plead  his  cause  he  would  be  so  overcome  with  fear 
that  he  would  not  be  able  to  make  his  argument.  The  ver- 
dict would  go  against  him  by  default.  If  only  there  could 
be  an  umpire  to  hear  the  two  parties  (God  and  Job),  there 
would  be  more  hope;  but  this  again  is  impossible.  Only 
one  conclusion  is  open:  God  destroys  the  righteous  and 
the  wicked  alike  according  to  the  whim  of  the  moment 
(9  :  22).  But  in  this  conclusion  the  religious  soul  cannot 
rest,  and  there  follows  another  appeal  to  God:  "Thy  hands 
have  framed  me  and  fashioned  me;  wilt  thou  turn  against 
me  and  destroy  me?  Remember  how  thou  didst  form  me 
as  clay;  wilt  thou  bring  me  into  dust  again?"  (10  :  8/.) 
The  longing  appeal  for  recognition  shows  that  the  more  the 
speaker  is  repulsed  by  his  friends  the  more  he  feels  that 
there  must  be  comfort  in  God  if  only  he  can  find  it. 

Feeling  around  for  some  ground  of  hope,  the  author  peers 
again  into  the  region  beyond  the  grave,  fascinated  by  the 
mystery  that  may  be  concealed  there.  Yet  he  can  form  no 
clear  conception  of  a  life  in  another  world.  The  realm  of 
the  departed  is  away  from  the  presence  of  God:  "There  is 
hope  of  a  tree,  if  it  be  cut  down,  that  it  will  sprout  again 
and  that  the  tender  branch  thereof  will  not  cease;  though 


272  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

the  root  thereof  wax  old  in  the  earth  and  the  stump  thereof 
die  in  the  ground,  yet  through  the  scent  of  water  it  may 
bud  and  put  forth  boughs  like  a  plant.  But  man  dies  and 
is  laid  low;  man  gives  up  the  ghost  and  where  is  he?  As 
the  waters  fail  from  the  lake  and  the  river  wastes  and  dries 
up  so  man  lies  down  and  rises  not;  till  the  heavens  be  no 
more  they  shall  not  awake  nor  be  roused  out  of  their  sleep" 
(14  :  7-12).  In  spite  of  this  explicit  statement,  a  lingering 
hope  still  asserts  itself:  "Oh,  that  thou  wouldst  hide  me  in 
Sheol,  that  thou  wouldst  keep  me  secret  until  thy  wrath 
were  past,  that  thou  wouldst  set  me  a  time  and  remember 
me!"  (14  :  13.)  Sheol  is  evidently  a  place  where  a  man 
would  be  out  of  sight  of  the  divinity.  For  this  reason  the 
speaker  wishes  that  he  might  have  a  temporary  sojourn 
there,  that  God  might  have  time  to  bethink  himself.  His 
wrath  then  might  cool  and  he  would  remember  his  servant 
and  recall  him  from  the  dark  world,  receiving  him  into  favour 
again.  But  even  this  wish  is  set  aside  as  something  impos- 
sible. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  the  debate  in  detail.  The 
friends  have  said  all  that  they  can  say,  and  can  only  repeat 
the  same  thing,  but  with  increasing  positiveness.  The  prog- 
ress of  the  discussion  confirms  them  in  the  opinion  that  Job 
is  a  great  sinner.  He  is  charged  by  the  venerable  Eliphaz 
with  destroying  religion,  and  the  evidence  is  drawn  from  his 
own  words.  Nothing  is  left  except  to  warn  him  of  his  peril- 
ous condition.  So  a  vivid  picture  is  drawn  of  the  reckless 
sinner  who  stretches  out  his  hand  against  God,  bidding  de- 
fiance to  the  Almighty.  All  three  of  the  alleged  friends  unite 
in  applying  this  description  to  Job,  so  that  he  is  more  and 
more  convinced  that  he  has  nothing  to  look  for  from  man 
and  turns  again  to  God.  His  faith  reasserts  itself  in  the  well- 
known  words:  "I  know  that  my  avenger  lives,  and  at  last 
he  shall  stand  upon  the  earth;  and  after  my  skin  (even  this 
body)  is  destroyed,  yet  without  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God; 
whom  I,  even  I,  shall  see  for  myself  and  my  eyes  shall  behold 
and  not  as  a  stranger"  (19  :  25-27).  The  language  must  be 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  273 

interpreted  in  harmony  with  the  explicit  rejection  of  the 
thought  of  a  future  life  of  blessedness  which  we  have  already 
cited.  The  declaration  is  an  answer  to  the  question  whether 
God  is  the  friend  or  the  enemy  of  the  sufferer.  His  faith  is 
that,  though  the  Almighty  had  momentarily  turned  away 
from  him,  yet  he  must  bethink  himself.  Then,  after  the 
death  of  his  servant,  he  will  stand  over  his  grave  and  pro- 
nounce him  innocent.  And  the  spirit  of  the  dead  man  will 
have  some  knowledge  of  this  vindication.  Perhaps  he  may 
be  permitted  to  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the  moon  and  hear  the 
final  verdict  in  his  favour.  This  seems  to  us  a  meagre  satis- 
faction, but  for  the  author  it  is  enough.  He  has  shown  his 
hero  fighting  his  doubts  and  coming  into  a  reasonable  con- 
fidence. 

This  individual  believer,  then,  has  the  confidence  that  God 
will  deal  with  him  in  such  a  way  as  to  vindicate  him  from  the 
false  suspicions  of  his  friends  and  of  the  world.  But  the 
larger  problem  is  still  to  be  attacked.  The  friends  have 
based  their  accusations  on  a  definite  theory  of  the  divine 
government.  They  are  sure  that  God  rewards  the  good  and 
punishes  the  wicked  in  this  world — they,  like  Job,  know 
nothing  of  another  world.  Job  reviews  the  facts  of  life  as 
he  has  observed  them,  and  finds  that  the  theory  is  not  borne 
out.  Instead  of  the  case  being  as  the  friends  affirm,  the  re- 
verse may  easily  be  discovered:  "Why  do  the  wicked  live, 
become  old,  yes,  wax  mighty  in  power?  Their  seed  is  estab- 
lished with  them  in  their  sight,  and  their  offspring  before 
their  eyes.  Their  houses  are  safe  from  fear,  neither  is  the 
rod  of  God  upon  them."  Death  may  indeed  come  upon  them 
suddenly,  but  this  is  a  mercy  rather  than  a  punishment  as 
the  case  of  Job  himself  proves.  If  it  be  said  that  his  children 
are  punished  for  his  crimes,  how  can  this  be  made  to  vindi- 
cate justice?  "Let  his  own  eyes  see  his  destruction  and  let 
himself  drink  of  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty,  for  what  cares 
he  for  his  house  when  the  number  of  his  months  is  cut  off?  " 
(21  :  7-9.)  Consideration  of  this  problem  threatens  to  bring 
back  Job's  former  perplexity,  especially  as  his  friends  find 


274  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

nothing  to  say  except  to  renew  their  old  charges  of  blasphemy 
against  the  one  who  doubts  their  theology.  Their  attacks 
are  met  by  a  renewed  protest  of  innocence,  accompanied  by 
a  detailed  statement  of  the  principles  on  which  he  has  con- 
ducted himself  throughout  his  life  (31).  So  far  from  being 
without  fear  of  God  as  they  charged,  he  has  always  regulated 
his  life  by  it:  "Does  he  not  see  my  ways  and  number  all  my 
steps?  If  I  have  despised  the  cause  of  my  servant  or  of  my 
maid  when  they  contended  with  me,  what  then  shall  I  do 
when  God  rises  up?  When  he  visits  what  shall  I  answer  him? 
Did  not  he  that  made  me  in  the  womb  make  him?"  With 
calm  confidence  Job  would  receive  the  indictment  of  his 
prosecutor  even  if  this  were  God  himself.  Such  is  the  con- 
scious innocence  of  the  man  who  fears  God  and  turns  aside 
from  evil. 

It  is  evident  that  the  larger  problem  has  not  been  solved. 
Nor  is  it  solved  by  the  speeches  of  Yahweh,  which  come 
after  Job  has  affirmed  his  integrity  anew.  The  divine  inter- 
locutor contents  himself  with  pointing  out  the  wonders  of 
creation  and  asking  Job  whether  he  understands  them.  In 
successive  questions  the  objects  which  meet  the  eye  in  earth 
and  sky  and  sea  are  brought  before  the  listener,  in  order  that 
he  may  have  a  realising  sense  of  the  task  of  governing  the 
universe  (chapter  38).  When  Job  confesses  his  own  insignifi- 
cance he  is  again  addressed  with  the  sarcastic  injunction: 
"Deck  thyself  now  with  excellence  and  dignity  and  array 
thyself  with  honor  and  majesty !  pour  forth  the  overflowings 
of  thine  anger  and  look  upon  every  one  that  is  proud  and 
abase  him!"  (40  :  10-12.)  In  reply  Job  can  only  confess 
that  he  has  spoken  rashly  in  what  he  has  brought  forward. 
Yet  this  is  not  a  confession  that  Job  was  in  the  wrong,  for 
the  epilogue  expressly  acquits  him  while  accusing  the  friends. 

The  result  of  the  inquiry,  then,  is  a  non  liquet.  So  far  as 
the  general  problem  of  the  government  of  the  world  is  con- 
cerned, the  author  is  no  wiser  than  other  men.  He  sees  the 
world  *to  be  so  great  and  wonderful  that  the  principles  by 
which  it  is  governed  are  above  the  comprehension  of  man. 


THE  SCEPTICAL  REACTION  275 

Only  he  who  made  it  is  able  to  govern  it,  but  he  may  be 
trusted  to  govern  it  rightly.  One  thing  stands  out  clearly: 
Man  must  not  think  that  the  world  is  governed  for  his  sake, 
for,  after  all,  man  is  only  one  of  the  creatures  for  which  God 
cares.  This  is  the  mistake  of  the  orthodox,  represented  by 
the  friends  in  the  dialogue.  They  supposed  themselves  to 
know  the  ways  of  God,  and  on  the  basis  of  this  supposed 
knowledge  they  were  willing  to  do  their  fellow  man  a  grievous 
wrong  in  misjudging  him.  The  result  of  the  inquiry  is  not 
pessimism;  the  author  rejoices  in  the  great  world  in  which 
he  lives.  It  is  not  irreligion;  for  those  who  wait  upon  God 
receive  a  measurable  satisfaction  in  their  confidence  in  him. 
But  to  a  certain  extent  it  is  agnosticism,  the  agnosticism  of 
one  who  would  not  allow  a  theological  theory  to  shut  his 
eyes  to  the  facts  of  life.  His  earnestness  and  honesty  are 
evident. 

The  thought  of  the  author  was  too  advanced  for  his  con- 
temporaries, and  the  book  was  increased  in  size  by  two  in- 
sertions which  were  intended  to  correct  its  teaching.  One 
of  these  is  the  well-known  poem  in  the  twenty-eighth  chap- 
ter. This  is  a  panegyric  of  wisdom,  which  is  the  prerogative 
of  God  alone.  The  author  is  deprecating  such  discussion  as 
is  carried  on  by  Job  and  his  friends,  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
intruding  into  the  sphere  of  divine  things.  Man  should  turn 
to  the  practical  problems  of  life,  fear  God  and  eschew  evil, 
and  be  content.  More  significant  is  the  long  speech  assigned 
to  Elihu.  This  personage  is  represented  as  a  young  man 
who  has  listened  to  the  debate  between  Job  and  his  friends 
and  is  dissatisfied  with  both  parties.  What  he  really  does 
is  to  set  forth  anew  the  arguments  (if  arguments  they  may 
be  called)  of  the  friends.  He  reveals  to  us  the  tenacity  of 
the  view  that  misfortune  is  a  punishment  for  sin.  This  view 
maintained  itself  in  Israel,  as  we  see  from  many  of  the  Psalms, 
and  is  not  wholly  overcome  even  at  the  present  day. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS 

SPECULATION  on  the  ways  of  God  is,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  the  occupation  of  only  one  thinker  in  ten  thousand. 
The  majority  of  men  are  confronted  by  more  immediate 
problems.  This  was  the  case  with  the  Jews  in  the  Greek 
period.  This  people,  as  we  have  seen,  had  ceased  to  be  a 
nation,  and  the  majority  of  them  were  living  outside  of  what 
they  still  regarded  as  their  true  home.  In  the  cities  founded 
by  Alexander  and  his  successors  the  Jews  were  a  prominent 
part  of  the  population.  The  great  port  of  Egypt  which  the 
conqueror  called  by  his  own  name  speedily  counted  a  hun- 
dred thousand  Jews  among  its  inhabitants.  In  this  and  other 
large  cities  they  were  obliged  to  learn  a  new  mode  of  life  and 
to  adjust  themselves  to  new  modes  of  thought.  The  nation 
of  agriculturists  had  become  a  race  of  traders.  Men  who  are 
engaged  in  commerce  must  develop  a  different  ethic  from 
that  which  satisfies  a  community  of  peasants. 

Two  things  conspired  to  make  the  problem  difficult.  The 
Jew,  although  living  among  the  gentiles,  wished  to  preserve 
his  own  religion.  To  live  in  the  world  and  yet  not  conform 
to  its  religious  and  social  usages  required  no  small  skill.  In 
the  second  place,  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  (which 
was  essential  to  the  business  man  in  this  period)  brought 
with  it  some  knowledge  of  Greek  culture.  But  Greek  cul- 
ture was  predominantly  intellectual.  Both  metaphysic  and 
ethic  had  been  studied  by  the  ablest  minds  among  the  Greeks, 
and  the  claim  of  the  philosophers  to  possess  the  truth  was  a 
challenge  to  the  Jew  to  make  good  the  claims  of  his  own 
Law.  Adjustment  to  practical  life  and  to  Greek  modes  of 

276 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        277 

thought  was,  therefore,  forced  upon  reflecting  minds  among 
the  Jews.  Hence  the  rise  of  what  we  call  the  Wisdom  litera- 
ture. Although  direct  evidence  is  lacking,  we  may  assume 
that  in  this  period  a  regular  system  of  instruction  was  inau- 
gurated in  Jerusalem.  The  teachers  were  called  sages;  their 
instruction  was  given  orally,  but  the  maxims  in  which  they 
embodied  the  substance  of  their  teachings  were  written  down 
and  have  reached  us  in  the  books  we  have  now  to  consider. 
The  point  of  view  is  set  forth  with  all  desirable  distinctness 
in  the  opening  words  of  the  book  of  Proverbs:  "To  know 
wisdom  and  discipline;  to  discern  words  of  understanding; 
to  receive  instruction  in  wise  dealing,  in  righteousness,  and 
equity"  (Prov.  1  : 2 /.). 

The  sage  claims  to  have  attained  this  knowledge  and  he 
desires  to  impart  the  knowledge  to  others.  The  art  of  right 
living  is  something  that  can  be  learned,  and  it  is  because  the 
young  man  has  not  studied  it  that  he  so  often  goes  astray. 
The  bad  man  is  a  fool,  either  because  he  has  not  had  the 
opportunity  of  learning  how  to  live  or  because  he  has 
flouted  the  instruction  offered  him.  The  sage,  therefore, 
addresses  the  young  man  in  order  to  give  him  knowledge  and 
discretion:  "If  thou  wilt,  my  son,  thou  shalt  be  instructed, 
and  if  thou  givest  thy  mind  to  it  thou  shalt  become  wise," 
says  Ben  Sira;  and  the  same  author  admonishes:  "Neglect 
not  the  speech  of  the  wise,  and  reflect  on  their  enigmas;  by 
this  thou  shalt  attain  education,  so  that  thou  canst  appear 
before  princes;  despise  not  the  tradition  of  the  ancients  which 
they  have  received  from  their  fathers;  for  thereby  thou  shalt 
attain  insight  so  that  thou  canst  give  an  answer  when  there 
is  occasion"  (Sirach  8  :  8/.;  6  :  32). 

In  dating  the  Wisdom  literature  in  the  Greek  period,  we 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  something  similar  had  not  existed 
from  very  early  times  in  Israel.  In  fact,  the  wise  men  are 
occasionally  alluded  to  in  the  pre-exilic  period,  and  from  the 
nature  of  the  case  apothegms  embodying  reflections  on  the 
problems  of  life  are  current  among  all  peoples  which  have 
reached  anything  like  civilisation.  We  have  from  Egypt  the 


278  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

sayings  of  Ptah-hotep,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  two  thousand 
years  before  Christ  and  whose  point  of  view  is  not  unlike 
that  of  our  book  of  Proverbs.  For  example,  he  says:  "How 
beautiful  it  is  when  a  son  receives  what  his  father  says;  he 
shall  attain  long  life.  Take  care  what  thou  sayest!  Let  it 
be  such  that  the  nobles  will  say:  How  fine  is  the  utterance 
of  his  mouth  I  If  thou  obtainest  me  (wisdom)  thy  body  will 
remain  sound,  and  the  king  will  be  content  with  all  thy 
actions."  We  have  also  from  Egypt  a  similar  collection  at- 
tributed to  one  Ani  containing  warnings  against  women  and 
exhortations  to  care  for  father  and  mother  very  similar  to 
what  we  find  in  our  book  of  Proverbs,  and  the  maxims  of 
the  Babylonian  Ahikar  were  known  to  the  Jews  as  early 
as  the  sixth  century  B.  C.  The  Wisdom  literature,  therefore, 
is  not  of  purely  Jewish  origin.1 

Our  reason  for  dating  the  books  now  under  consideration 
in  this  period  is  easily  understood.  The  books  are  four  in 
number  (the  book  of  Job,  though  affiliated  with  them,  has 
been  treated  separately),  namely,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  the 
Wisdom  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach,  and  the  Wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon. The  similarity  of  the  four  is  so  great  that  they  cannot 
have  originated  far  apart  in  time.  One  of  them  we  can 
date  with  almost  absolute  certainty.  This  is  the  book  of 
Ben  Sira  (Ecclesiasticus),  which  must  have  been  written 
about  the  year  180  B.  C.  The  others  must  belong  in  the  same 
general  period,  Proverbs  somewhat  earlier,  Wisdom  certainly 
later.  Two  of  the  four  were  received  into  the  Hebrew  canon. 
This  was  probably  because  they  were  attributed  to  Solomon. 
Wisdom  was  written  in  Greek  and  so  did  not  appeal  to  the 
Rabbinical  authorities.  The  ascription  of  Proverbs  to  Solo- 
mon is  only  in  line  with  postexilic  custom,  which  published 
many  books  under  the  name  of  ancient  worthies. 

The  point  of  view  of  this  whole  school  is  well  put  before 
us  by  Ben  Sira,  or  rather  by  his  grandson,  who  translated  his 
book  into  Greek,  in  his  preface:  "Whereas  many  and  great 

1  The  sayings  of  Ptah-hotep  and  of  Ani  are  translated  in  Gressmann, 
Altorientalische  Texte  und  Bilder,  I,  pp.  201 /. 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        279 

things  have  been  delivered  to  us  by  the  Law  and  the  prophets 
and  the  others  who  have  followed  after  them,  for  which  things 
Israel  ought  to  be  commended  for  culture  and  wisdom,  and 
since  it  is  becoming  not  only  that  the  learned  should  them- 
selves attain  insight  but  also  that  they  should  be  able  to 
profit  the  unlearned,  therefore  my  grandfather  when  he  had 
much  given  himself  to  the  study  of  the  Law  and  the  prophets 
and  the  other  books  of  our  fathers  and  had  got  therein  suf- 
ficient skill,  felt  moved  himself  to  write  something  pertain- 
ing to  learning  and  wisdom,  that  those  who  are  desirous  to 
learn,  being  attached  to  these  things,  might  profit  all  the 
more  in  living  according  to  the  Law."  The  grandson  in 
stating  his  grandfather's  desire  formulated  his  own  purpose 
also,  since  it  was  his  aim  in  translating  the  book  into  Greek 
to  benefit  his  fellow  Jews  in  precisely  the  same  way.  What 
impresses  us  is  that  the  Jew  has  taken  up  the  Greek  chal- 
lenge which  claimed  culture  and  wisdom  as  Greek  posses- 
sions. The  claim  is  rejected  on  the  ground  that  in  the  Law 
the  Jew  has  the  supreme  source  of  wisdom.  The  Law  is 
already  supplemented  by  the  collection  known  as  the  proph- 
ets and  by  some  other  books,  which  are  not  described  more 
particularly.  But  it  is  plain  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
already  exist  in  the  threefold  division  which  still  obtains. 
In  these  Scriptures  the  Jew  has  the  supreme  code  of  ethics, 
and  the  object  of  Ben  Sira  in  publishing  his  reflections  is  to 
enable  his  fellows  to  live  according  to  the  Law.  The  author 
of  Proverbs  avows  the  same  aim:  "He  that  turns  his  ear  from 
hearing  the  Law,  even  his  prayer  is  an  abomination"  (Prov. 
28  :  9).  Both  authors,  however,  claim  to  speak  not  only 
from  knowledge  of  the  Law  but  also  from  long  observation 
of  human  life.  Ritual,  to  be  sure,  which  occupies  so  large  a 
space  in  the  Pentateuch,  is  not  made  prominent  by  them. 
This  is  because  they  could  trust  the  priestly  scribes  to  see 
that  this  part  of  the  Law  was  carefully  obeyed.  What  most 
interested  them  was  the  problem  of  carrying  the  ethic  of 
the  Jewish  code  into  practical  life  in  foreign  and  often  hostile 
surroundings. 


280  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Since  these  authors  deal  with  every-day  problems,  they 
do  not  permit  themselves  to  dwell  much  on  the  specific 
Messianic  hope.  Yet  the  strong  racial  feeling  comes  out 
now  and  then.  Ben  Sira  prays  that. Israel  may  be  saved 
and  that  Yahweh  will  send  his  terror  on  the  gentiles.  This 
author  hopes  for  the  gathering  of  the  tribes  and  the  return 
of  Elijah,  and  in  one  passage  even  alludes  to  the  Messiah 
(Sirach  48:  9;  cf.  47:  22).  His  pride  in  the  history  of  Israel 
comes  out  in  his  panegyric  on  the  national  heroes.  He  is 
confident  that  the  God  of  Israel  is  the  only  true  God  (36  :  22), 
and  genuine  Jewish  feeling  shows  itself  in  his  hatred  for  the 
schismatic  Samaritans,  "the  foolish  people  that  dwell  in 
Shechem"  (50  : 26). 

So  thoroughly  has  the  belief  in  one  God  established  itself 
that  the  polemic  against  idols  such  as  we  find  in  Deutero- 
Isaiah  is  no  longer  necessary.  The  hope  of  the  Jew  is  that 
the  gentiles  may  recognise  that  there  is  no  God  besides 
Yahweh  (Sirach  33 : 5).  There  is,  however,  no  speculation  on 
the  problems  raised  by  the  belief  in  God — as  to  his  charac- 
ter, his  toleration  of  evil,  or  his  government  of  the  world.1 
Ben  Sira  deprecates  such  inquiries:  "What  is  too  high  for  thee 
search  not  out,  neither  inquire  into  what  is  beyond  thy 
strength;  for  men  have  many  vain  opinions,  and  evil  specu- 
lations lead  them  astray  "(3:21  and  24) .  At  the  same  time  cer- 
tain things  are  assumed;  for  example,  that  the  universe  is  an 
ordered  universe,  a  kosmos,  as  the  Greeks  would  say.  The 
principle  of  its  ordering  is  wisdom,  and  the  glowing  words 
in  which  she  describes  her  part  in  the  creation  of  the  world 
testify  to  the  firmness  with  which  this  idea  of  an  ordered 
universe  had  rooted  itself  in  the  mind  of  these  thinkers 
(Prov.  8).  Ben  Sira  is  moved  to  praise  by  his  contempla- 
tion of  the  works  of  God  in  nature,  and  utters  his  thought  in 
one  of  the  most  elevated  passages  which  have  come  to  us 
from  a  Hebrew  source  (Sirach  42 :  15  to  43: 33).  To  this  ex- 
alted mood  the  problem  of  evil  seems  to  be  no  longer  a 
problem,  for  even  the  evil  spirits  and  the  venomous  beasts 
are  subject  to  the  will  of  the  Creator  (39  :  28-31). 

1  The  exception  in  the  case  of  Ecclesiastes  is  discussed  below. 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        281 

Religion  is  the  basis  of  ethics.  The  motto  of  the  school  is : 
"The  fear  of  Yahweh  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom."  Although 
the  works  of  Yahweh  are  wonderful  and  his  deeds  among  men 
inscrutable  (Sirach  11  :  4),  yet  on  the  whole  he  is  on  the 
side  of  the  righteous.  "He  sees  all  that  men  do,  and  they  who 
think  to  escape  his  notice  deceive  themselves"  (23  :  10/.). 
"The  ways  of  men  are  before  the  eyes  of  Yahweh,  and  he 
regards  all  their  paths"  (Prov.  5  :  21).  The  wise  man  is  the 
one  who  bears  this  in  mind,  while  the  fool  is  the  one  who 
doubts  the  providence  of  God :  "Say  not  in  thy  heart:  'Who 
has  power  over  me?  '  For  Yahweh  is  an  avenger;  say  not: 
'I  have  sinned  and  what  happened  to  me?'  for  Yahweh  is 
patient.  Trust  not  in  forgiveness  so  as  to  go  on  in  sin" 
(Sirach  3  :  3-5).  The  egoistic  nature  of  this  teaching  needs 
no  demonstration,  but  it  would  be  easy  to  emphasise  it  un- 
duly. As  the  man  who  believes  honesty  to  be  the  best 
policy  may  yet  be  honest  from  a  higher  motive,  so  with  these 
advocates  of  wisdom.  They  believe  that  godliness  is  profit- 
able, but  the  godliness  need  not,  therefore,  be  mere  selfishness. 
Religion  is  the  fear  of  Yahweh,  but  it  is  also  trust  in  him: 
"Trust  in  Yahweh  with  all  thy  heart,  and  lean  not  on  thine 
own  understanding,"  says  the  author  of  Proverbs  (3  :  5), 
and  Sirach  pronounces  a  woe  on  the  heart  which  has  not 
faith,  for  it  shall  not  be  established  (2  :  13).  Obedience  to 
the  will  of  Yahweh,  therefore,  was  in  the  last  analysis  based 
on  the  belief  that  the  will  of  Yahweh  is  in  conformity  with 
righteousness. 

This  is  implied  in  the  treatment  of  wisdom  itself — the  most 
characteristic  thing  in  all  this  literature.  Wisdom  is  the  art 
of  right  living,  and  it  has  attained  consistency  in  a  body  of 
tradition  which  has  come  down  from  former  generations.  It 
is  not,  however,  of  human  origin.  It  is  revealed  from  above, 
and  its  proper  home  is  the  bosom  of  God  himself.  Wisdom 
personified  declares  as  much:  "Yahweh  formed  me  at  the 
beginning  of  his  way;  before  his  works  of  old.  .  .  .  When  he 
established  the  heavens  I  was  there,  when  he  set  a  circle  on 
the  face  of  the  deep.  .  .  .  Then  I  was  by  him  as  a  master 
workman,  and  I  was  daily  his  delight,  sporting  before  him 


282  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

always,  sporting  in  his  habitable  earth,  and  my  delight  was 
with  the  sons  of  men"  (Prov.  8  :  22-31).  Sirach,  in  like 
manner,  says  that  wisdom  dwells  in  heaven,  was  created  be- 
fore all  things,  is  the  possession  of  God  himself,  and  has 
power  over  the  nations  (Sirach  1  :  4,  8/.,  and  chapter  24). 

The  authors  of  these  passages  are,  in  fact,  influenced 
by  the  speculative  tendencies  which  they  have  disavowed. 
There  was  a  theological  necessity  which  compelled  men  to 
mediate  between  God  and  the  world.  In  early  days  it  had 
not  been  difficult  to  suppose  that  Yahweh  came  in  person 
to  his  people,  in  theophany  and  vision.  But  with  the  larger 
view  of  the  universe  which  came  in  the  Persian  and  Greek 
periods,  Yahweh  in  becoming  greater  had  also  become  more 
remote.  He  had  need  of  mediators.  The  result  in  the  doc- 
trine of  angels  we  have  already  discovered.  The  Wisdom 
literature  has  little  to  say  of  angels,  but  it  finds  in  the  per- 
sonified wisdom  the  organ  by  which  the  transcendent  God 
reveals  himself  to  men  and  carries  on  his  work  of  creation 
and  providence.  Doubtless  Greek  thought  influenced  the 
conception,  reluctant  as  the  authors  themselves  would  have 
been  to  admit  such  influence. 

The  mission  of  wisdom  is  not  only  to  order  the  universe; 
she  is  the  guide  and  counsellor  who  invites  and  warns  the 
sons  of  men.  She  is,  in  fact,  the  voice  of  God  calling  men 
to  right  living.  By  a  natural  transition  (natural  to  a  loyal 
Jew,  that  is)  she  is  identified  with  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Scripture.  Ben  Sira  says  that  wisdom  is  given  to  all  flesh, 
but  especially  to  those  who  fear  Yahweh  (1  :  10),  and  again 
he  makes  wisdom  declare  that  she  had  taken  up  her  resi- 
dence in  Jacob,  and  he  identifies  her  with  the  book  of  the 
covenant  of  God,  the  Law  that  Moses  commanded  (24  :  23). 
In  practical  life,  therefore,  wisdom  means  obedience  to  the 
will  of  God  revealed  in  the  Law:  "He  who  fears  Yahweh 
seeks  wisdom,  and  he  who  keeps  the  Law  attains  her,"  says 
Ben  Sira,  and  he  frequently  returns  to  the  theme,  exhorting 
his  readers  to  reflect  and  to  keep  the  commandments  (Sirach 
1  :  26;  6  :  37;  15  :  1;  32  :  1-15). 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        283 

It  is  evident  that  legalism  has  here  formulated  its  simple 
creed:  God  has  given  a  law  to  guide  men  into  right  living; 
this  law  is  to  be  studied  and  expounded  in  the  light  of  tradi- 
tion and  experience;  thus  studied  and  obeyed  it  leads  to  a 
really  successful  life.  Wisdom,  then,  is  the  most  precious 
possession  of  man.  Gold  and  jewels  are  not  to  be  compared 
to  her;  those  that  love  her  love  life;  she  is  a  crown  of  gold 
to  the  one  who  obtains  her;  all  her  ways  are  pleasantness 
and  her  paths  are  peace.  Nor  is  she  difficult  of  attainment. 
She  invites  men  to  her  banquet.  To  the  young  and  unin- 
structed  she  says:  "Come  eat  of  my  bread  and  drink  of  the 
wine  which  I  have  mingled;  leave  off  ye  simple  ones  and 
live,  and  walk  in  the  ways  of  understanding"  (Prov.  9  :  5/.). 
"She  brings  her  sons  to  honor  and  takes  the  part  of  those 
that  seek  her;  he  who  loves  her  loves  life  and  those  who 
seek  her  shall  be  filled  with  joy"  (Sirach  4  :  ll/.).  Con- 
trasted with  her  is  Madame  Folly,  who  also  invites  men  to 
her  house  saying:  "Stolen  waters  are  sweet,  and  bread  eaten 
in  secret  is  pleasant."  But  those  who  accept  her  invita- 
tion go  to  death  and  her  guests  are  in  the  depths  of  Sheol 
(Prov.  9  :  18). 

The  reward  of  obedience  is  given  in  this  life,  and  so  is  the 
recompense  of  ill  doing.  There  is  no  intimation  that  the 
future  life  is  a  place  of  recompense.  Wisdom  "holds  long  life 
in  her  right  hand,  in  her  left  are  riches  and  honor"  (Prov. 
3  :  16).  "The  rebellion  of  the  simple  slays  them,  and  the 
security  of  fools  destroys  them,  whereas  the  upright  shall 
dwell  in  the  land  and  the  perfect  shall  remain  in  it,  while  the 
wicked  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  land,  and  the  treacherous 
shall  be  rooted  out  of  it"  (Prov.  1  :  32;  2  : 21,  and  often). 
There  is  no  enjoyment  in  Sheol,  says  Ben  Sira.  After  ask- 
ing: "\Vho  shall  praise  the  Most  High  in  the  grave  instead 
of  them  that  live  and  give  thanks?"  he  answers  his  own 
question:  "Thanksgiving  perishes  from  the  dead  as  from 
one  that  is  not;  the  living  and  sound  alone  praise  Yahweh" 
(Sirach  14  :  16;  17  :  27).  The  righteous  man  may  indeed 
comfort  himself  with  the  hope  that  after  his  death  his 


284  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

descendants  will  have  part  in  the  Messianic  glory,  and  for 
the  wise  man  there  is  always  the  confidence  that  his  name 
will  be  held  in  honour  after  he  has  gone  from  this  life. 

So  far  as  these  authors  are  concerned,  the  book  of  Job 
might  not  have  been  written.  The  sufferings  of  the  right- 
eous, so  far  as  they  are  considered  at  all,  are  supposed  to  be 
disciplinary:  "My  son,  despise  not  the  chastening  of  the 
Almighty,  neither  be  weary  of  his  reproof;  for  whom  Yahweh 
loves  he  reproves,  even  as  a  father  the  son  in  whom  he  de- 
lights" (Prov.  3  :  12).  "Gold  is  tried  in  the  fire,  and  accept- 
able men  in  the  furnace  of  adversity"  (Sirach  2:5).  He,  there- 
fore, who  would  learn  wisdom  must  make  up  his  mind  to  be 
tested  by  trouble.  If  his  faith  stands  the  test  God  will  at  last 
reward  him:  "Look  at  the  former  generations  and  see;  who 
ever  trusted  Yahweh  and  was  put  to  shame?  Who  abode 
in  his  fear  and  was  forsaken?  Who  called  to  him  and  was 
despised?  For  Yahweh  is  merciful  and  gracious;  he  forgives 
sin  and  rescues  in  time  of  trouble"  (Sirach  2  :  10/.).  The 
point  of  view  is  the  one  which  is  represented  by  the  so-called 
friends  of  Job. 

The  existence  of  evil  seems  to  present  no  problem  to  these 
writers.  Each  man  is  endowed  with  free  will  and  can  make 
or  mar  his  own  fate.  Nothing  is  said  of  a  sinful  nature,  or  of 
inherited  tendencies  to  evil:  "God  in  the  beginning  made  man 
and  left  him  to  his  own  will;  if  thou  wilt  thou  shalt  keep  the 
commandments,  and  it  is  a  faithful  thing  to  do  what  is  pleas- 
ing to  him"  (Sirach  15  :  14/.).  There  is  no  need  of  expiation, 
and  the  sacrificial  system,  while  it  is  assumed  to  be  divinely 
ordered,  must  not  be  taken  to  wipe  out  guilt.  The  priest  is 
to  be  honoured,  the  tithes  are  to  be  paid  and  the  sacrifices 
are  to  be  brought,  but  one  must  not  think  that  Yahweh  can 
be  bribed  by  them.  "The  sacrifice  of  a  wicked  man  is  abomi- 
nation to  Yahweh"  (Prov.  15  :  8).  The  only  way  of  counter- 
acting sin  is  by  right  action:  "Water  quenches  fire,  and 
righteousness  erases  sin"  (Sirach  3  :  30). 

The  system  of  this  school,  then,  may  be  called  legalism, 
with  the  emphasis  on  the  ethical,  as  distinguished  from  the 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        285 

ritual,  commandments — a  common-sense  legalism  we  may 
say.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  as  a  working  theory  of 
life  it  gave  satisfaction  to  its  adherents.  Ben  Sira  praises 
the  scribe  as  the  man  who  has  the  best  of  callings,  and  the 
general  tone  of  these  writers  (with  the  exception  to  be  noted 
presently)  is  optimistic.  Ben  Sira  knows  that  all  God's 
works  are  good;  even  man,  though  so  often  rebellious,  has 
received  eyes  and  ears  to  perceive  the  good,  and  a  mind  to 
understand:  "With  understanding  and  insight  he  filled  their 
heart;  good  and  evil  he  taught  them,  to  show  them  his 
mighty  acts,  that  they  might  have  his  fear  in  their  heart, 
to  magnify  his  wonders  always,  and  to  praise  his  sacred 
name"  (Sirach  17  :  5-10).  Therefore  the  writer  is  moved  to 
a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  for  deliverance  from  danger,  and  for 
help  vouchsafed  in  time  of  peril  (Sirach  51).  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  think  of  these  men  as  mere  moralists.  They  had 
the  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God,  and  they  appealed 
to  him  for  blessings  not  only  temporal,  but  spiritual.  Ben 
Sira  invokes  God  as  his  father,  and  prays  to  be  kept  from  sin, 
especially  from  unguarded  utterance:  "Oh  that  one  would 
set  a  watch  on  my  mouth  and  on  my  lips  a  lock  of  discretion, 
that  I  may  not  fall  by  them.  .  .  .  Let  me  not  have  pride  of 
eyes,  and  keep  me  from  haughtiness  of  heart;  let  not  the 
desire  of  the  flesh  seize  me,  nor  shameless  lust  rule  over  me" 
(Sirach  22 :  27  to  23 : 6) .  In  similar  strain  Agur  prays :  "Two 
things  have  I  desired  of  thee;  deny  me  them  not  before  I  die: 
Remove  far  from  me  falsehood  and  lies,  and  give  me  neither 
poverty  nor  riches;  feed  me  with  the  portion  that  belongs  to 
me,  lest  I  be  full  and  deny  thee,  and  say:  Who  is  Yahweh? 
or  lest  I  be  poor  and  steal  and  use  profanely  the  name  of 
my  God"  (Prov.  30  :  7-9). 

Two  classes  of  sin  seem  to  tempt  the  young  and  inex- 
perienced in  the  period  when  these  books  were  written. 
These  are  sins  of  violence  and  sexual  excesses.  Proverbs 
describes  the  sinners  who  invite  the  young  man  to  make 
common  cause  with  them  in  robbery:  "Let  us  lurk  privily 
for  the  innocent;  let  us  swallow  them  alive  as  those  who 


286  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

go  down  to  Sheol;  we  shall  find  all  precious  substance,  shall 
fill  our  houses  with  spoil;  cast  in  thy  lot  amongst  us,  and  let 
us  all  have  one  purse"  (Prov.  1  :  10/.).  The  passage  re- 
flects the  unsettled  state  of  society  during  the  Greek  period. 
The  central  government  was  weak,  and  the  policing  of  the 
provinces  was  neglected.  The  career  of  highway  robber  of- 
fered attractions  to  the  adventurous.  Moreover,  the  for- 
eign rule  over  the  Jews  gave  large  opportunities  for  spies 
and  informers.  Blackmail  could  be  collected  by  the  less 
scrupulous,  who  were  willing  to  use  their  advantage.  The 
temptation  against  which  the  wise  man  cautions  his  pupil 
must  be  obvious.  From  this  point  of  view  also  we  under- 
stand Ben  Sira's  somewhat  cold-blooded  cautions  against 
easy  friendship :  "  Be  at  peace  with  many  but  let  thy  friend 
be  one  of  a  thousand;  if  thou  wouldst  get  a  friend,  prove 
him  first  and  be  not  hasty  to  credit  him;  for  many  an  one 
is  a  friend  for  the  time,  but  abides  not  for  the  day  of  need; 
many  a  friend  becomes  an  enemy  and  reveals  thy  quarrel 
among  the  people"  (Sirach  6  :  6-9).  At  the  same  time  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  call  this  cynicism;  the  value  of  a 
true  friend  is  fully  recognised:  "Of  a  faithful  friend  there  is 
no  price,  and  his  worth  is  incalculable;  a  faithful  friend  is 
a  medicine  of  life;  whoso  fears  God  obtains  him"  (6  :  15/.). 
Proverbs  also  knows  of  a  friend  that  sticks  closer  than  a 
brother. 

The  state  of  society  is  reflected  in  the  warnings  against 
enemies:  "An  enemy  speaks  sweetly  with  his  lips  but  in 
his  heart  he  is  devising  to  throw  thee  into  a  pit;  he  will 
weep  with  his  eyes  but  if  he  find  opportunity  he  will  be 
insatiate  of  blood"  (Sirach  12  :  16).  The  prudent  man  will 
avoid  association  with  those  whom  he  knows  or  suspects  to 
be  evil.  The  temptation  to  court  the  society  of  the  rich 
and  powerful  is  to  be  guarded  against  (13  :  2-13;  cf.  Prov. 
23  :  1-3).  The  guard  which  Ben  Sira  is  careful  to  set  on 
his  lips  is  comprehensible  when  we  consider  the  way  in 
which  this  society  was  honeycombed  with  espionage :  "  Even 
a  fool  if  he  holds  his  peace  is  accounted  wise"  (Prov.  17  :  28). 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        287 

The  false  friend  leads  one  on  to  speak  perverse  things  that 
he  may  deliver  one  over  to  the  judge.  But  the  wise  man 
will  know  how  to  avoid  the  trap:  "Understanding  shall 
keep  thee  and  deliver  thee  from  every  false  way,  from  the 
man  who  speaks  perverseness"  (Prov.  2  :  12  /.).  Scepti- 
cism also  was  rife,  and  there  were  those  who  were  ashamed 
of  the  Law,  who  justified  the  wicked  and  condemned  the 
righteous.  Such  men  are  an  abomination  to  Yahweh 
(Prov.  17  :  15).  The  young  man  flatters  himself  that  he 
has  sinned  once  and  has  not  been  punished,  and  so  he  dis- 
believes in  the  divine  administration  of  affairs.  In  fact,  it 
was  a  time  of  intellectual  ferment,  and  many  were  losing 
the  old  faith. 

If  the  young  man  had  cause  to  avoid  the  society  of  syco- 
phants, false  friends,  and  those  who  would  lead  him  into 
crime,  he  had  also  reason  to  guard  against  the  seductions 
of  the  strange  woman.  Whether  the  notorious  laxity  of 
Greek  custom  with  reference  to  the  relations  of  the  sexes 
is  in  evidence  here  is  doubtful.  Ezekiel  shows  that  Hebrew 
manners  down  to  the  time  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  left  much 
to  be  desired.  In  the  Law,  indeed,  we  have  strict  injunc- 
tions against  sexual  licence,  and  Jewish  writers  of  this  period 
doubtless  felt  that  their  morality  was  superior  to  that  of 
the  gentiles — this  is  one  of  the  points  emphasised  by  Philo 
and  the  Sibylline  books.  Our  authors  show  plainly  enough 
how  constantly  young  men  were  beset  by  temptations  to 
unchastity.  There  is  in  the  exhortations  of  the  sages,  how- 
ever, no  trace  of  asceticism,  as  though  marriage  were  a  less 
perfect  state  than  celibacy.  On  the  contrary,  the  young 
man  is  exhorted  to  rejoice  in  the  married  state,  and  while 
many  of  the  references  to  women  in  this  literature  are  de- 
rogatory to  the  sex,  yet  the  virtuous  woman  receives  high 
praise.  The  classic  panegyric  of  Proverbs  is  too  well  known 
to  need  citation  here  (Prov.  31  :  10-31),  and  Ben  Sira  says: 
"A  good  wife  is  a  good  gift,  and  she  is  given  to  the  man 
who  fears  God"  (Sirach  26  :  3). 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  further  details  concerning  the 


288  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

teachings  of  the  sages.  The  line  between  manners  and 
morals  is  not  easy  to  draw,  and  both  manners  and  morals 
are  treated  in  detail  by  these  writers.  As  we  have  seen,  a 
certain  type  of  mind  is  able  to  rest  in  such  a  practical,  com- 
mon-sense system,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  sages  thought 
highly  of  their  own  attainments.  Ben  Sira,  after  describ- 
ing the  various  professions  and  trades  and  the  advantages 
of  each,  comes  to  that  of  the  scribe,  the  student  of  the  Law: 
"  But  he  that  gives  his  mind  to  the  Law  of  the  Most  High, 
and  is  occupied  in  the  meditation  thereof,  will  seek  out  the 
wisdom  of  all  the  ancients  and  be  occupied  in  the  prophe- 
cies; he  will  seek  out  the  secrets  of  grave  sentences  and  be 
conversant  in  dark  parables;  he  will  serve  among  great 
men  and  appear  before  princes"  (Sirach  39  :  1-4).  In  fact, 
if  there  be  an  art  of  right  living  there  can  be  no  nobler  call- 
ing than  that  of  him  who  makes  this  art  the  object  of  his 
study  and  who  imparts  the  results  of  his  reflections  to 
others.  But  the  limitations  of  the  method  of  the  sages  are 
obvious.  They  had  no  profound  philosophy  of  life.  They 
purposely  avoided  speculation  on  the  nature  of  things. 
That  more  thoughtful  inquirers  could  not  rest  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  common  sense  is  made  evident  by  one  book  of 
this  group,  and  to  this  we  now  turn. 

This  book  bears,  rather  unfortunately,  the  name  Ecclesi- 
astes.  The  Hebrew  title  Koheleth  is  not  altogether  clear 
in  meaning,  but  probably  intends  to  describe  the  author 
as  one  of  the  group  of  teachers  who,  we  have  reason 
to  believe,  carried  on  systematic  instruction  in  Jerusalem. 
That  the  book  gives  itself  forth  as  a  work  of  Solomon  can 
cause  us  no  surprise.  The  tradition  of  Solomon's  wisdom 
made  him  the  patron  saint  of  all  this  school,  and  his  repu- 
tation for  wealth  and  luxury  made  him  the  appropriate 
character  to  inculcate  the  lessons  Koheleth  had  at  heart.1 
For  Koheleth  claims  to  have  found  by  careful  observation 
of  the  world  that  all  is  vanity — absolute  emptiness  and  a 

1  On  the  date  of  the  book  the  reader  may  consult  the  commentary 
of  Barton  (1910),  p.  62. 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        289 

striving  after  wind  is  his  watchword.  His  reason  is,  first, 
that  the  course  of  nature  is  an  eternal  grind  with  no  visible 
progress  toward  a  goal:  One  generation  goes  and  another 
comes,  the  sun  travels  his  daily  round,  the  winds  turn  from 
one  side  to  another  without  being  able  to  find  a  new  quar- 
ter of  the  compass;  the  rivers  run  to  the  sea  only  to  re- 
ceive their  supplies  from  the  same  source — "  that  which  has 
been  is  that  which  shall  be,  that  which  has  been  done  is 
that  which  shall  be  done,  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under 
the  sun"  (Eccles.  1:9).  Human  experience  is  of  the  same 
sort.  The  king  with  all  the  resources  of  wealth  and  power 
at  his  command  may  experiment  with  every  pleasure,  sen- 
sual, aesthetic,  intellectual,  only  to  find  that  no  one  of  them 
gives  real  satisfaction;  each  is  a  striving  after  wind.  Even 
wisdom,  though  of  a  certain  practical  advantage,  makes  no 
real  difference  among  men,  for  one  event  happens  to  all,  to 
the  wise  man  and  to  the  fool.  God  does  not  intervene,  either 
to  reward  the  righteous  or  to  punish  the  wicked,  nor  yet 
to  regulate  the  course  of  the  world  to  any  end.  He  does, 
indeed,  ordain  what  comes  to  pass,  but  this  only  adds  to 
man's  misery,  for  it  shows  him  that,  however  he  may  strive, 
his  fate  is  not  in  his  own  power:  "I  beheld  all  the  work  of 
God,  that  man  cannot  find  out  the  work  that  is  done  under 
the  sun;  because,  however  much  a  man  labors  to  seek  it 
out,  yet  shall  he  not  find  it.  ...  All  things  come  alike  to 
all;  there  is  one  event  to  the  righteous  and  to  the  wicked, 
to  the  good  and  to  the  bad,  to  the  clean  and  to  the  unclean, 
to  him  that  sacrifices,  and  to  him  that  sacrifices  not;  as  is 
the  good  so  is  the  sinner;  he  that  swears  is  as  he  that  fears 
an  oath"  (8  :  16/.;  9  :  2). 

Man's  freedom  is  thus  an  illusion,  and  the  theory  of  retribu- 
tion, either  in  this  life  or  in  another,  has  no  foundation.  God 
purposely  treats  men  and  animals  alike  that  men  may  know 
that  they  are  no  better  than  the  brutes  (3  :  18/.).  All  go 
to  one  place.  The  theory  of  a  future  life  is  met  with  the 
stern,  almost  angry,  question:  "Who  knows  whether  the 
spirit  of  man  goes  upward  and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  goes 


290  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

downward?"  (3  :  21.)  Specific  denial  is  made  of  any  work 
or  device  or  knowledge  or  wisdom  in  Sheol  to  which  we  go 
(9  :  10).  Even  the  poor  consolation  that  Ben  Sira  found 
in  the  thought  that  one's  memory  will  abide  through  the 
generations  proves  illusory,  for  the  memory  of  the  dead  per- 
ishes like  their  loves  and  their  hates  (9  :  5).  If  one  comforts 
himself  in  the  thought  that  his  children  will  give  him  a  sort 
of  immortality,  this  also  proves  groundless,  for  who  can  tell 
whether  they  will  be  an  honour  or  a  disgrace  to  their  par- 
ents? It  is  a  bitter  thought  to  the  wise  man  that  after 
labouring  to  accumulate  an  estate  he  may  leave  it  to  a  stran- 
ger, or  if  he  leaves  it  to  a  son  that  son  may  turn  out  to 
be  a  fool  (2  :  19). 

The  world,  then,  is  an  unintelligible  world.  Worse  than 
this,  it  is  a  perverse  world;  the  wicked  sit  in  the  place  of 
judgment;  the  cry  of  the  oppressed  finds  no  response;  the 
righteous  perish  in  their  righteousness;  slaves  ride  on  horse- 
back while  princes  go  afoot;  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift  nor 
the  battle  to  the  strong;  riches  are  not  apportioned  to  men 
of  understanding  nor  favour  to  men  of  skill  (3  :  16;  4:1; 
7  : 15;  9  :  ll/.;  10  : 7).  A  similar  complaint  was  uttered  by 
the  author  of  Job,  but  the  indictment  is  here  much  stronger. 
The  author  of  Job  was  able  to  rest  in  the  faith  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  world,  though  incomprehensible  by  man,  was 
yet  in  accordance  with  true  wisdom.  Koheleth  has  lost  this 
faith.1  It  is  probably  not  true  that  he  had  ceased  to  believe 
in  the  existence  of  God.  This  frame  of  things  cannot  be 
without  a  mind,  he  might  have  said.  But  his  search  for  a 
rational  order  in  the  conduct  of  affairs  brought  no  result. 
It  is  as  if  God  purposely  arranged  to  confound  the  pride  of 
men.  "One  fate  comes  to  man  and  beast,  that  man  may 
know  that  he  is  no  better  than  the  lower  animals."  There  is, 
therefore,  no  real  good  for  man.  "The  dead  are  better  off 
than  the  living,  better  than  either  is  the  untimely  birth  which 
does  not  open  its  eyes  to  the  light"  (4  :  2;  6  :  3). 

1 A  glimpse  of  agnosticism  in  Proverbs  (30  :  2-4)  shows  that  he  was 
not  alone  in  his  negations. 


LEGALISM  AND  PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS        291 

In  the  book  as  we  have  it  there  is,  indeed,  the  assertion  that 
a  relative  good  is  attainable  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  pleasures 
of  life,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  these  Epicurean  passages 
are  by  the  original  author.  Whoever  inserted  them,  how- 
ever, drew  a  natural  conclusion  from  the  premises  of  the 
author.1  In  the  book  there  are,  moreover,  a  number  of  pas- 
sages which  plainly  contradict  its  main  teaching.  Where 
Koheleth  saw  only  perversity  in  the  administration  of  the 
world  and  wickedness  in  high  places,  the  pious  annotator 
assures  us  that  God  will  judge  the  righteous  and  the  wicked 
(3  :  17).  Direct  rebuke  seems  to  be  administered  to  the 
author  by  the  insertion:  "Because  sentence  against  an  evil 
work  is  not  executed  speedily  the  heart  of  the  sons  of  man  is 
fully  set  in  them  to  do  evil;  but  though  a  sinner  do  evil  a 
hundred  times  and  prolong  his  days  yet  surely  I  know  that 
it  shall  be  well  with  them  that  fear  God;  but  it  shall  not  be 
well  with  the  wicked,  neither  shall  he  prolong  his  days  which 
are  as  a  shadow  before  God"  (8  :  11-13).  Most  instructive 
of  all  is  the  edifying  conclusion  of  the  book  in  which  the  ortho- 
dox defender  of  the  faith  shows  his  assurance  that  he  has 
silenced  his  adversary :  "  The  end  of  the  matter  when  all  has 
been  heard  is:  Fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments,  for 
this  is  the  whole  of  man;  for  God  will  bring  every  work  into 
judgment  even  every  hidden  thing  whether  it  be  good  or 
whether  it  be  evil"  (12  :  13). 

If  it  had  not  been  for  these  edifying  insertions  it  is  probable 
that  Ecclesiastes  would  not  have  been  received  into  the  Jew- 
ish canon.  And  some  may  even  now  demur  at  the  inclusion 
of  the  original  author  among  the  sages  of  Israel.  Yet  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  counted  himself  a  loyal  Jew,  and 
that  he  claimed  a  place  among  the  teachers  of  Israel.  The 
editor  of  his  book  assures  us  that  because  Koheleth  was  wise 
he  still  taught  the  people  knowledge.  Scattered  through  the 
book  we  find  wise  saws  such  as  adorn  the  book  of  Proverbs : 
"Better  a  handful  of  quiet  than  two  handfuls  of  toil";  "Two 

1  These  Epicurean  passages  are  3  :  12/.,  22;  5  :  17-19;  8  :  15  and 
9  :  7-10. 


292  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

are  better  than  one";  "Better  is  a  poor  and  wise  youth  than 
an  old  and  foolish  king";  "Better  the  rebuke  of  the  wise  than 
the  song  of  fools."  Such  passages  impressed  the  average 
reader  more  distinctly  than  did  the  scepticism  of  the  book, 
and  they  gave  it  currency.  No  doubt,  the  thought  that  the 
riches  and  wisdom  of  Solomon  convinced  him  of  the  vanity 
of  worldly  prosperity  also  attracted  many  minds.  For  us 
who  seek  to  know  the  actual  course  of  religious  thought  in 
Israel  the  book  is  significant,  as  showing  the  near  approach 
to  bankruptcy  of  faith  made  by  one  who  sought  an  explana- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  life. 

How  it  escaped  bankruptcy  in  the  case  of  some  minds  is 
made  evident  by  the  latest  book  in  this  group,  the  Wisdom 
of  Solomon.  Since  the  book  was  written  in  Greek  and  at 
the  very  end  of  the  Old  Testament  period,  it  might  be  a  ques- 
tion whether  it  belongs  in  our  discussion.  Yet  the  author  is 
a  loyal  Jew,  and  he  makes  use  of  Solomon  to  teach  the  lessons 
he  has  at  heart.  Far  from  making  the  great  king  the  blase 
and  disillusioned  pursuer  of  pleasure,  however,  it  holds  him 
up  as  an  example,  a  man  who  has  attained  the  best  there  is 
in  life.  We  can  hardly  avoid  seeing  in  this  an  intentional 
confutation  of  the  older  book.  Ben  Sira  and  Koheleth  are 
apparently  opposed  to  Greek  philosophy.  The  author  of 
Wisdom,  on  the  other  hand,  finds  the  solution  of  the  problems 
of  life  in  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  and  this  not  in  the  Jew- 
ish form  of  a  resurrection  of  the  body,  but  distinctly  in  the 
form  already  wrought  out  by  Greek  philosophy,  that  is,  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  set  free  from  the  body  by  death.  To 
him  it  is  the  sinner  who  says  that  in  the  death  of  a  man  there 
is  no  remedy,  neither  is  any  known  to  return  from  the  grave 
(Wisdom  2:1).  "In  the  world  to  come  the  righteous  shall 
enjoy  eternal  felicity  in  the  presence  of  God  and  receive  a 
beautiful  crown  from  him"  (3  :  8). 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
APOCALYPTIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

ECCLESIASTES  shows  a  rationalising  tendency  at  work  on 
the  religion  of  Israel,  and  it  is  a  question  whether  Greek 
thought  was  not  undermining  the  distinctive  beliefs  embodied 
in  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  What  might  have  happened  had 
there  been  no  violent  attack  on  those  beliefs  (and  the  prac- 
tices which  went  with  them)  we  cannot  tell.  What  actually 
took  place  is  clear  to  us.  The  persecution  of  Antiochus 
kindled  the  zeal,  not  to  say  fanaticism,  of  the  observers  of 
the  Law  and  gave  to  Legalism  a  new  and  stronger  hold  on 
the  affections  of  the  faithful.  The  conflict  with  the  Syrian 
monarchy  showed  that  a  considerable  party  in  Jerusalem 
sympathised  with  the  desire  of  the  king  to  "civilise"  his 
subjects,  as  he  phrased  it.  These  men  were  not  moved  alto- 
gether by  a  desire  to  secure  court  favour.  Some  of  them  were 
attracted  by  Greek  ideals.  They  were  to  be  found  among 
the  more  educated  of  the  nation  and  were  in  any  case  only 
a  minority.  Opposed  to  them  were  the  strict  observers  of 
the  Law,  and  the  course  of  the  struggle  showed  that  these 
were  divided  into  two  parties.  One  we  may  call  the  Macca- 
beans,  adherents  of  the  heroic  family  which  led  the  revolt. 
They  were  at  first  moved  only  by  the  determination  to  resist 
tyranny,  but  as  they  achieved  success  they  indulged  hopes 
of  restoring  the  politicial  independence  of  their  nation.  The 
other  fraction  consisted  of  the  Asideans,  the  Pious,  as  they 
called  themselves.  They  would  take  no  part  in  political 
affairs,  believing  that  Yahweh  would  set  up  his  kingdom  in 
his  own  time  by  an  act  of  miraculous  intervention.  Until 
that  time  should  come,  the  duty  of  the  loyal  Jew,  as  they 

293 


294  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

believed,  was  to  obey  the  Law  to  the  letter,  and  wait  upon 
God.  This  party  did,  indeed,  make  common  cause  with  the 
Maccabeans  when  the  possibility  of  keeping  the  Law  was 
threatened,  but  as  soon  as  they  were  again  allowed  to  observe 
their  customs  without  interference  they  withdrew  from  the 
struggle. 

We  have  seen  the  importance  which  the  Messianic  hope 
assumed  in  postexilic  Judaism.  What  now  interests  us  is 
the  intensity  with  which  the  hope  was  held  in  the  time  of 
persecution.  It  is  only  in  accordance  with  human  nature 
that  the  expectation  of  divine  intervention  should  rise  to 
fevered  heat  in  proportion  as  persecution  becomes  more  bit- 
ter. At  such  times  believers  argue  that  God  cannot  long 
leave  his  people  to  be  a  prey  to  the  wicked.  In  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church  expectation  of  the  Second  Coming 
becomes  acute  at  those  times  in  which  the  puritan  party  is 
oppressed  by  worldlings.  So  in  the  Jewish  Church  the  Mes- 
sianic hope  was  kindled  into  flame  when  persecution  arose. 
It  then  took  new  and  fantastic  forms,  and  the  more  ardent 
spirits  even  ventured  to  calculate  the  time  of  the  end  and  to 
revive  the  spirits  of  their  coreligionists  by  specific  promises 
that  the  day  was  just  at  hand.  The  evidence  is  found  in  a 
group  of  books  to  which  we  give  the  name  apocalypses. 

The  author  of  an  apocalypse  conceives  of  prophecy  as 
essentially  predictive — the  miraculous  revelation  of  what  is 
to  come  to  pass.  But  the  older  books  of  prophecy  very 
imperfectly  conform  to  this  ideal.  The  predictions  which 
they  contain  are  much  less  definite  and  specific  than  the 
believer  would  like  to  have  them.  This  defect  is  remedied 
in  the  apocalypse.  On  the  basis  of  a  tradition  or  of  vision- 
ary experiences,  or  of  both,  the  author  sets  forth  the  divine 
plan  as  he  conceives  it.  And  since  this  plan  embraces  the 
past  as  well  as  the  future,  he  dates  his  work  in  the  past, 
ascribing  it  to  some  ancient  worthy.  This  name  will  carry 
weight  with  the  reader.  The  predictions  embodied  in 
the  work  are  really  history  under  the  guise  of  prophecy, 
and  they  are  usually  couched  in  the  form  of  vision,  that 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  295 

being  the  traditional  means  of  revelation.  In  the  theory  of 
the  book  the  ancient  seer  to  whom  it  is  ascribed  had  the 
course  of  human  history  unrolled  to  him  in  trance  from  his 
own  time  until  it  reached  its  end  with  the  triumph  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

The  representative  apocalypse  in  the  Hebrew  canon  is  the 
book  of  Daniel,  in  which  all  these  points  are  fully  illustrated. 
It  has,  however,  precursors  in  some  older  fragments.  Eze- 
kiel  has  distinctly  apocalyptic  features.  It  was  he  who  first 
set  forth  the  scheme  adopted  by  later  writers,  according  to 
which  there  would  be  a  miraculous  annihilation  of  the 
heathen  world-power,  followed  by  an  equally  miraculous  re- 
building of  the  temple.  In  the  other  prophets  we  have  sim- 
ilar utterances.  Thus  Habakkuk  describes  the  coming  of 
Yahweh  to  judgment:  "Yahweh  comes  forth  to  judge  his 
people;  his  presence  shakes  the  earth,  dries  up  the  streams, 
causes  the  sun  to  forget  his  rising,  and  the  moon  to  cease 
her  shining"  (Hab.  3).  Several  passages  now  included  in 
the  book  of  Jeremiah  have  the  apocalyptic  colouring,  and 
with  them  we  may  class  the  little  book  of  Joel.  This  exam- 
ple is  especially  instructive,  for  it  shows  how  any  extraor- 
dinary event  in  nature  may  awaken  the  expectation  of 
Yahweh's  coming.  The  extraordinary  event  in  this  case 
was  a  plague  of  locusts  such  as  often  visits  the  countries  bor- 
dering the  desert.  The  author  describes  what  seems  to  him 
an  unprecedented  event  and  the  description  is  in  such  terms 
that  expositors  have  been  in  doubt  whether  a  veritable  swarm 
of  locusts  is  intended  or  whether  the  author  is  picturing  the 
approach  of  a  hostile  army:  "A  people  has  invaded  my  land 
mighty  and  without  number.  .  .  .  Like  heroes  they  run, 
like  veteran  warriors  they  climb  the  wall,  they  march  every 
one  in  his  way  and  they  do  not  break  their  ranks"  (Joel 
1  :  6  and  2:7).  The  decision,  however,  cannot  be  doubt- 
ful; the  author  is  describing  an  invasion  of  locusts  pure 
and  simple.  It  is  significant  of  his  point  of  view  that  his 
chief  grief  is  that  the  desolating  swarm  has  cut  off  meat- 
offering and  drink-offering  from  the  house  of  God  (1  :  13). 


296  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

He  is  thoroughly  priestly  in  his  sentiment,  and  he  shows 
this  further  by  his  view  of  the  efficacy  of  fasting.  It  is  only 
necessary  that  the  people  fast,  the  priests  setting  the  exam- 
ple, in  order  that  the  grace  of  Yahweh  may  be  manifested. 
Yahweh  is  moved  for  his  people,  the  oncoming  plague  is 
driven  back,  the  rain  follows  in  its  season,  and  the  bounti- 
ful harvest  of  the  new  year  more  than  makes  good  what  has 
been  destroyed  by  the  invaders. 

All  this  is  preliminary.  The  invasion  of  locusts  is  imme- 
diately followed  by  the  supernatural  phenomena  of  the 
Messianic  age.  The  day  of  Yahweh  is  ushered  in  by  great 
overturnings  in  nature  and  in  the  world  of  man.  It  is  a 
time  of  clouds  and  thick  darkness,  of  gloom  and  terror 
(2  :  1  /.,  10).  There  are  prodigies  in  heaven  above  and  on 
earth  beneath,  blood  and  fire  and  pillars  of  smoke,  the  sun 
turned  into  darkness  and  the  moon  into  blood.  Among 
mankind,  also,  there  are  miracles.  The  spirit,  the  organ  of 
revelation,  will  no  longer  be  restricted  to  a  few  chosen  mem- 
bers of  the  race,  but  will  be  poured  out  on  all.  Even  slaves 
and  maid  servants  will  possess  it  or  be  possessed  by  it  (3  :  1). 
This  we  may  suppose  will  be  true  of  Jews  alone,  for  punish- 
ment is  to  be  the  lot  of  the  other  nations.  Yet  a  chance 
of  salvation  is  left  for  those  gentiles  who  become  proselytes 
and  call  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh. 

The  final  scene  is  the  great  day  of  judgment,  described  in 
terms  that  have  influenced  all  subsequent  thinking.  After 
the  gathering  of  Israel  to  its  own  land  Yahweh  will  sum- 
mon the  nations  to  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  (the  Valley 
of  Yahweh's  Judgment),  which  the  author  doubtless  located 
just  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  and  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  Yahweh,  who  dwells  in  the  temple.  There  the 
divinity  will  call  them  to  account  for  their  treatment  of 
the  exiled  Israelites.  The  penalty  will  be  their  own  sale 
into  slavery  by  the  Jews.  The  sentence  will  not  be  put 
into  execution  without  a  conflict,  but  Yahweh  will  be  vic- 
torious: "He  will  roar  from  Zion  and  utter  his  voice  from 
Jerusalem,  so  that  heaven  and  earth  shake;  Yahweh  will 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  297 

be  a  refuge  to  his  people  and  a  stronghold  to  the  children  of 
Israel;  so  shall  you  know  that  I  am  Yahweh  your  God, 
dwelling  in  Zion,  my  sacred  mountain;  then  shall  Jerusalem 
be  sacred  and  no  foreigner  shall  pass  through  her  any  more  " 
(3  :  16/.).  The  transformation  of  the  land  will  follow  so 
that  the  mountains  will  distil  sweet  wine,  and  the  hills 
will  flow  with  milk.  EzekiePs  expectation  of  a  fountain 
flowing  from  the  temple  mount  and  watering  the  waste 
places  will  be  fulfilled,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Egypt  will 
be  a  desert  and  Edom  will  be  desolate.  The  Messiah  is 
nowhere  mentioned.  The  dwelling  of  Yahweh  himself  in 
Jerusalem  is  supposed  to  make  a  human  king  superfluous. 

A  very  similar  composition  has  found  a  place  in  the  book 
of  Isaiah  (chapters  24-27). l  The  author  expects  a  day  of 
judgment.  Yahweh  will  lay  the  earth  waste  for  the  sin- 
fulness  of  its  inhabitants.  The  judgment  will  extend  to  the 
host  of  heaven  on  high — the  first  intimation  that  the  angels 
will  be  punished  for  disobedience  (Isaiah  24  :21/.).  The 
same  idea  is  apparently  expressed  in  Yahweh's  sword  pierc- 
ing Leviathan,  the  crooked  serpent,  the  dragon  (27  :  1). 
Early  mythological  ideas  seem  here  to  be  taken  up  by  the 
Hebrew  writer,  for  in  Babylonian  mythology  there  is  a  con- 
flict between  the  chief  of  the  gods  and  an  opposing  monster. 
The  struggle  with  hostile  powers  will  be  followed  by  Yahweh's 
dwelling  in  Jerusalem,  where  he  will  make  for  all  nations  a 
feast  of  fat  things;  he  will  wipe  away  tears  from  all  faces, 
and  the  reproach  of  his  people  he  will  take  away  over  all 
the  earth  (25  :  8).  In  this  document,  as  in  Joel,  the  human 
Messiah  is  not  mentioned;  he  is  made  superfluous  by  the 
thought  that  Yahweh  himself  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  his 
people.  Here  we  meet  for  the  first  time  the  distinct  assur- 
ance of  a  resurrection  for  Israel,  the  full  significance  of  which 
will  be  seen  when  we  look  at  the  book  of  Daniel. 

Still  another  passage,  which  may  be  called  apocalyptic  in 
the  larger  sense,  is  now  contained  in  the  book  of  Zechariah 

1  Whether  more  than  one  hand  is  discoverable  in  the  section  does  not 
now  concern  us. 


298  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

(chapters  9-14).  This  passage  begins  with  a  denunciation  of 
the  neighbours  of  Judah  against  whom  Yahweh  is  about  to 
assert  himself.  He  will  use  Judah  as  his  bow,  and  Ephraim 
as  his  arrow  against  the  sons  of  Greece.  This  day  of  Yah- 
weh will  be  a  day  of  battle  in  which  the  nations  will  gather 
against  Jerusalem,  and  though  at  first  successful  they  will 
finally  be  conquered  by  the  direct  act  of  God.  In  this 
sense  Jerusalem  will  be  a  goblet  of  intoxication  to  all  nations 
(Zech.  12  :  2).  The  consummation  comes  when  Yahweh 
himself  takes  up  his  abode  in  Jerusalem  and  becomes 
king  over  all  the  earth:  "And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that 
every  one  that  is  left  of  the  nations  shall  come  up  from 
year  to  year  to  worship  the  king  Yahweh  of  Hosts,  and  to 
keep  the  feast  of  tabernacles"  (14  :  16).  The  land  will  be 
miraculously  transformed  so  that  there  will  be  neither  heat 
nor  cold,  and  there  will  be  no  night.  Ezekiel's  fountain  will 
flow  as  a  perpetual  stream,  and  the  ritual  ideal  will  be  fully 
realised,  so  that  all  the  cooking  utensils  in  Jerusalem  will 
be  consecrated  and  the  worshippers  will  be  able  to  use  any 
of  them  for  the  sacrificial  flesh  (14  :  20/.).  Whatever  uni- 
versalism  the  author  cherished,  therefore,  had  a  distinctly 
Jewish  colouring.  For  this  reason  we  must  interpret  ritual- 
istically  the  declaration  that  Yahweh  will  open  in  Jerusalem 
a  fountain  for  sin  and  uncleanness  (13  :  1).  Only  ritual 
offences  can  be  removed  by  the  application  of  water,  and 
there  is  no  intimation  that  sinfulness  in  its  darker  aspect 
will  be  forgiven  or  purged  away.  What  crime  will  be  re- 
pented of  by  the  people,  "like  the  mourning  of  Hadad- 
Rimmon"  (12  :  11),  is  entirely  obscure. 

The  apocalyptic  nature  of  these  chapters  is  most  clearly 
manifest  in  the  conviction  that  the  Messiah  is  about  to 
appear.  Jerusalem  is  exhorted  to  rejoice  because  her  king 
is  at  hand.  He  is  pictured  as  the  meek  and  lowly  one,  rid- 
ing on  the  peaceful  ass  instead  of  the  warrior's  horse  (9  :  9). 
Since  he  is  the  prince  of  peace  he  will  abolish  the  implements 
of  war — the  chariots  from  Ephraim,  the  horses  from  Jeru- 
salem: To  destroy  the  bow  of  war  and  to  offer  peace  to 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  299 

the  nations.  His  dominion  will  extend  from  one  sea  to  the 
other  and  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  ends  of  the  land,  that 
is,  he  is  to  possess  the  traditional  empire  of  Solomon  (9  :  10). 
Such  fragmentary  utterances  enable  us  to  understand  how 
constantly  certain  circles  nourished  their  faith  on  the  thought 
of  a  divine  intervention  that  would  restore  the  ancient  glo- 
ries of  Israel.  It  was  when  the  Maccabean  revolt  was  at 
its  height  that  the  hope  assumed  the  definiteness  with  which 
it  is  pictured  in  the  book  of  Daniel. 

In  this  period  the  whole  power  of  the  Syrian  kingdom  was 
brought  to  bear  on  the  little  company  of  faithful  Jews  in  the 
endeavour  to  make  them  apostatise.  The  first  need  was  to 
encourage  the  faithful  to  stand  fast  in  the  observance  of  the 
Law.  The  author  of  our  book  makes  use  of  an  ancient  tra- 
dition which  told  of  Daniel,  a  righteous  man,  wrho  stood  high 
in  the  favour  of  Yahweh  (Ezek.  14  :  14  and  19;  28  :  3). 
This  Daniel  he  makes  the  mouthpiece  of  his  own  convictions, 
authenticating  the  story  by  the  correspondence  of  the  vision 
with  the  actual  course  of  history.  That  the  book  was  com- 
pleted just  after  the  first  successes  of  Judas  Maccabeus  is 
so  obvious  that  we  need  not  stop  to  argue  the  question. 
Whether  it  does  not  embody  older  material  is  unimportant 
for  our  present  purpose.1 

One  aim  of  the  writer  of  the  stories  in  the  first  half  of  the 
book  is  to  show  that  the  wisdom  of  Israel  is  superior  to  that 
of  the  gentiles.  In  this  period,  as  we  have  seen,  Greek  phi- 
losophy was  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  world,  making 
the  claim  to  possess  the  truth.  At  the  same  time  the  ancient 
reputation  of  the  Babylonians  as  men  having  superior 
knowledge  was  reaffirmed  by  men  like  Berossus.  Daniel  is 
made  the  example  to  prove  that  the  Jews  were  proficient  in 
the  arts  which  the  astrologers  of  both  nations  were  claiming 
as  their  own.  Specifically,  the  wisdom  of  Daniel  was  the 
power  of  interpreting  dreams.  In  this  he  shows  himself 
master  of  the  art  and  brings  contempt  on  the  far-famed 

1  Professor  Torrey  has  pleaded  for  the  earlier  composition  of  the 
first  half  of  the  book,  not  quite  convincingly,  as  it  seems  to  me. 


300  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Chaldeans.  A  heathen  king  may  receive  a  revelation  in  a 
dream,  but  he  is  unable  to  understand  it,  or  even  to  give  an 
intelligible  account  of  it,  without  the  help  of  the  inspired 
interpreter. 

The  God  of  Israel  is  thus  shown  to  be  the  only  God,  and 
to  be  the  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of  mankind.  He  has  a 
definite  plan,  according  to  which  the  various  empires  have 
their  day  and,  by  successive  stages,  lead  up  to  the  consum- 
mation of  all  things.  The  empires  of  Babylon,  Media, 
Persia,  and  Greece  mark  successive  stages  of  decadence,  and 
Antiochus  fills  the  cup  of  iniquity  to  overflowing.  The 
downward  movement  is  symbolised  by  the  gold  of  Babylon, 
succeeded  by  the  silver  of  Media,  this  by  the  bronze  of  Persia, 
the  lowest  stage  being  indicated  by  the  mingled  iron  and 
clay  in  Greece.  Not  only  is  the  divine  plan  fully  determined 
upon;  the  deeds  of  men  and  the  crimes  of  the  nations  are 
written  down  in  a  heavenly  record.  In  the  judgment  which 
is  about  to  be  held  these  records  will  testify  against  the  ac- 
cused (Daniel  7  :  10).  All  this  is  made  to  bear  upon  the 
situation  of  the  persecuted  Jews  by  the  stories  of  deliverance 
in  which  the  divine  power  comes  directly  into  operation. 
Daniel  and  his  friends,  though  living  at  the  court  of  a  heathen 
king,  are  model  Jews.  They  will  not  eat  of  the  king's 
dainties  for  fear  of  being  defiled;  they  will  not  bow  to  the 
image  set  up  by  him,  though  threatened  with  the  most  cruel 
of  deaths.  The  deliverance  of  the  three,  the  protection  of 
Daniel  in  the  lions'  den,  impresses  even  the  heathen  monarchs 
with  the  uniqueness  of  Israel's  God,  and  they  give  solemn 
testimony  to  this  effect.  Equally  convincing  is  the  anecdote 
of  Nebuchadrezzar's  madness,  followed  by  his  restoration 
and  a  renewed  testimony  to  the  God  of  the  Jews.  What 
tradition  may  have  furnished  the  basis  on  which  these  stories 
are  built  can  no  longer  be  discovered.  That  neither  they  nor 
the  story  of  Belshazzar's  feast  are  history  ought  to  be  self- 
evident.  Nebuchadrezzar,  or  Belshazzar,  or  Darius,  the 
king  who  claims  divine  honours  for  himself,  who  insults 
the  God  of  heaven,  or  who  thinks  to  impose  his  religion  on 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  301 

the  Jews,  is  in  each  case  only  Antiochus  Epiphanes  wearing 
a  mask. 

Our  author  has  no  confidence  in  the  help  of  man,  and  looks 
for  the  setting  up  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  a  direct  act  of 
God  himself.  In  his  sketch  of  the  fortunes  of  the  Syrian 
and  Egyptian  kingdoms  he  unhesitatingly  condemns  those 
of  his  people  who  attempt  to  bring  in  the  fulfilment  of  proph- 
ecy by  human  effort  (11  :  14).  When  he  speaks  of  the 
Maccabean  successes  he  says  only  that  they  are  helped  with 
a  little  help,  and  he  shows  his  distrust  of  the  movement  of 
Judas  and  his  brothers  by  saying  that  many  join  themselves 
to  them  by  flatteries  (11  :  34).  The  whole  duty  of  the  faith- 
ful according  to  him — and  that  he  represented  a  consider- 
able party  among  the  Jews  must  be  clear  to  one  who  follows 
the  course  of  history — was  to  wait  in  resignation  for  the 
divine  intervention.  But  the  very  point  of  his  writing  was 
to  express  the  conviction  that  this  intervention  was  just  at 
hand.  The  kingdoms  of  the  world  have  had  their  day;  they 
reached  the  extremity  of  guilt  when  Antiochus  erected  the 
altar  or  statue  of  a  Greek  god  in  the  temple.  This  is  the 
abomination  that  makes  desolate,  an  insult  to  the  divine 
majesty  so  gross  that  it  must  bring  down  the  divine  ven- 
geance. In  various  ways  the  sweeping  nature  of  this  ven- 
geance is  set  forth.  In  the  case  of  the  image  which  repre- 
sents the  successive  world-powers  we  read  that  the  gold,  the 
silver,  the  bronze,  the  iron,  and  the  clay  are  ground  to  dust 
and  blown  away,  and  the  stone  which  represents  the  Kingdom 
of  God  becomes  a  great  mountain,  filling  the  whole  earth 
(2  :  35).  On  the  other  hand,  the  parallel  vision  of  the  beasts 
seems  to  intimate  that  the  nations  will  continue  to  exist 
(though  without  power),  at  least  for  a  time  (7  :  ll/.).  The 
most  impressive  of  the  visions  shows  us  the  judgment  going 
on:  After  the  blasphemies  of  the  eleventh  horn  "the  thrones 
were  placed  and  the  Ancient  of  Days  did  sit;  his  raiment 
was  white  as  snow,  and  the  hair  of  his  head  like  wool;  his 
throne  was  fiery  flames,  and  the  wheels  thereof  were  burning 
fire;  a  fiery  stream  issued  and  came  forth  from  before  him; 


302  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

thousands  of  thousands  ministered  to  him,  and  ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  stood  before  him;  the  judgment  was  set 
and  the  books  were  opened.  I  beheld  at  that  time  because 
of  the  words  which  the  horn  had  spoken,  even  till  the  beast 
was  slain  and  its  body  destroyed,  and  it  was  given  to  be 
burned  with  fire.  ...  I  saw  in  the  night  vision  and  behold 
there  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven  one  like  a  man,  and 
he  came  even  to  the  Ancient  of  Days  and  they  brought  him 
near  to  him.  And  there  was  given  him  glory  and  dominion 
and  a  kingdom,  that  all  the  nations  should  serve  him;  his 
dominion  is  an  everlasting  dominion  which  shall  not  pass 
away"  (7  :  9-14). 

There  has  been  much  discussion  of  the  question  whether 
this  passage  refers  to  an  individual  Messiah.  The  true  inter- 
pretation seems  to  be  that  the  one  like  a  man1  is  contrasted 
with  the  beasts  which  have  appeared  in  the  vision,  and  as 
they  symbolise  kingdoms,  so  he  represents  a  kingdom.  This 
is  demonstrated  by  the  author's  own  interpretation  of  the 
vision,  in  which  he  says  that  the  kingdom  and  greatness  of 
the  kingdoms  under  the  whole  heaven  shall  be  given  (not  to 
the  Messiah,  the  son  of  David,  but)  to  the  people  of  the  saints 
of  the  Most  High:  "His  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom, 
and  all  dominions  shall  obey  and  serve  him"  (7  :  27;  note  the 
whole  passage,  vss.  21-27).  The  author,  we  must  conclude, 
had  no  interest  in  a  personal  Messiah.  His  ideal  was  that 
Israel  as  a  sacred  people  should  become  the  chief  nation  of 
the  world,  to  whom  all  others  should  be  subject.  They 
would  dwell  at  Jerusalem  with  their  God  as  their  ruler,  and 
his  high  priest  as  the  chief  executive.  Nowhere  in  the  book 
of  Daniel  is  there  any  intimation  of  a  Messianic  king,  the 
son  of  David.  The  only  thing  which  seems  at  first  sight  to 
militate  against  the  collective  interpretation  of  the  phrase 
"  one  like  a  man  "  is  the  fact  that  he  is  represented  as  coming 
on  the  clouds  of  heaven.  But  all  that  the  author  intended 

1  As  has  frequently  been  pointed  out,  the  Aramaic  phrase  "like  a  son 
of  man"  means  simply  like  a  man.  Whether  Son  of  Man  was  later  a 
Messianic  title  is  another  question. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC   HOPE  303 

to  express  is  that  Israel,  as  the  people  of  Yahweh,  had  a 
heavenly  origin.  It  was  kept  in  the  special  care  of  God 
until  such  time  as  he  should  see  fit  to  bring  it  to  its  own. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  the  conception  of  prophecy 
held  by  the  apocalyptic  writers  is  that  it  foretells  the  course 
of  history.  From  the  books  of  the  prophets  it  ought  to  be 
possible,  therefore,  to  calculate  the  time  of  the  end.  But  in 
the  older  books  there  is  only  one  passage  which  seems  to 
give  an  exact  date.  This  is  Jeremiah's  prediction  that  the 
captivity  would  last  seventy  years.  The  non-fulfilment  was 
evident  to  the  author  of  Daniel,  because  in  his  view  the  cap- 
tivity had  lasted  until  his  own  time.  His  conclusion  was, 
not  that  Jeremiah  was  mistaken — this  would,  in  fact,  be  un- 
thinkable— but  that  the  prediction  had  not  been  understood. 
Where  the  literal  sense  of  a  sacred  book  is  unacceptable,  re- 
course is  had  to  allegory.  The  author,  in  endeavouring  to 
understand  Jeremiah,  conceived  the  theory  that  the  seventy 
years  were  not  literal  years,  but  mystical  years.  With  a 
somewhat  inexact  knowledge  of  chronology  he  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  making  out  that  about  seventy  periods  of  seven  years 
each  had  elapsed  between  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  his  own 
time.  Jeremiah's  seventy  years  then  meant  these  seventy 
year-weeks.  The  importance  of  the  number  seven  in  Hebrew 
chronology  would  seem  to  him  to  confirm  this  interpre- 
tation. 

Our  author  puts  this  interpretation  into  the  mouth  of  the 
angel  who  shows  Daniel  the  course  of  future  history.  The 
four  hundred  and  ninety  years  from  586  B.  C.  he  divides  into 
three  periods.  First  comes  a  jubilee  period  of  seven  times 
seven  years  from  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  to  the  time  of  Joshua 
the  high  priest,  whom  he  calls  characteristically  the  anointed 
prince.  There  follows  a  period  of  sixty-two  weeks  of  years 
during  which  Jerusalem  is  inhabited  but  is  of  no  great  im- 
portance. Then  comes  the  final  period  of  seven  years  (one 
week)  which  will  be  a  time  of  trouble — the  birth  pangs  of 
the  kingdom.  This  begins  with  the  cutting  off  of  the 
anointed  prince,  that  is,  with  the  deposition  of  Onias  the 


304  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

high  priest  (9  :  26). l  This  is  followed  by  the  desecration  of 
city  and  temple  and  this  by  the  crowning  calamity,  the  arrest 
of  the  daily  offering.  The  author  indicates  that  this  cessa- 
tion of  the  offerings  will  last  through  one  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  days,  or  about  three  years  and  a  half  (cf.  12  :  7). 
His  last  eventful  week,  therefore,  is  divided  into  two  parts; 
the  first  half  has  passed,  the  second  is  still  in  the  future.  He 
anticipates  that  in  this  remaining  half  Antiochus  will  make  a 
final  expedition  against  the  Holy  Land  and  will  be  cut  off 
by  an  act  of  God.  In  the  general  overturning  of  the  nations 
Michael  will  interfere  to  protect  the  faithful  Jews.  After 
three  years  and  a  half  of  wars  and  tumults  those  martyrs 
who  testified  on  behalf  of  the  true  religion  will  be  raised  from 
the  dead,  as  will  the  renegades  who  were  not  punished  for 
their  treason.  This  is  in  order  that  the  one  group  may 
take  part  in  the  Messianic  kingdom,  while  the  other  will 
receive  just  punishment  for  their  deeds  (shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt,  12  :  I/.). 

The  endeavour  to  find  in  this  book  foreshadowings  of  the 
Christ  of  the  Church,  or  even  predictions  of  the  course  of 
events  for  centuries  of  Christian  history,  need  not  be  dwelt 
upon  here.  They  belong  in  a  history  of  biblical  exposition. 
All  that  we  need  to  note  is  that  the  author  of  Daniel  was 
firmly  convinced  that  the  great  event  of  the  world's  history, 
the  termination  of  the  world's  history,  in  fact,  and  the  open- 
ing of  a  new  period,  was  three  years  and  a  half  away  from 
the  date  of  his  writing.  In  this  he  was,  of  course,  mistaken, 
as  every  one  has  been  mistaken  who  thought  he  knew  the 
time  of  the  Messiah's  coming  or  of  the  Parousia  of  the  Christ. 
Within  the  period  he  had  set  he  must  have  become  convinced 
of  this,  unless,  indeed,  he  suffered  martyrdom  with  the  little 
band  of  faithful  observers  of  the  Law  for  whom  he  wrote. 
What  concerns  us  here  is  the  religious  faith  which  found  such 
vivid  expression  in  the  book.  The  book  attests  first  of  all  the 
prominence  which  the  angels  had  taken  in  the  belief  of  the 

1  The  verse  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  Onias  was  murdered,  but 
that  there  was  no  longer  a  legitimate  high  priest. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  305 

Jews.  Angels  were  not  altogether  absent  from  earlier  docu- 
ments; their  appearance  in  Zechariah's  visions  has  already 
been  noticed.  But  now  for  the  first  time  we  learn  their 
names.  Gabriel  and  Michael  appear  from  now  on  as  friends 
and  defenders  of  true  believers,  first  among  the  Jews  and  then 
in  the  Church.  It  is  no  longer  Yahweh  himself  who  speaks 
to  the  prophet — Gabriel  brings  the  word.  The  defence  of 
Israel  against  its  enemies  is  committed  to  Michael.  The 
throne  of  Yahweh  is  surrounded  by  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  such  ministers  (7  :  9  /.). 

In  the  heavenly  hosts  some  are  hostile  to  Israel.  When 
Gabriel  is  sent  to  comfort  Daniel  by  a  revelation  he  is  con- 
fronted by  the  guardian  angel  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia  who 
succeeds  in  detaining  him  three  weeks.  The  issue  would 
have  been  doubtful  had  not  Michael  come  to  Gabriel's  help 
(10  :  13).  Gabriel  expects  the  battle  to  be  renewed  after 
his  errand  to  Daniel  has  been  accomplished  and  anticipates 
that  the  angel  of  Greece  will  reinforce  the  Persian  (vs.  20). 
The  heavenly  government,  in  this  conception  of  it,  simply 
reflects  the  loose  organisation  of  Asiatic  empires,  where  the 
satraps  are  often  at  war  with  each  other.  The  theory  that 
each  human  nationality  has  its  heavenly  satrap,  who  shares 
the  predilections  and  animosities  of  his  clients,  was  welcome 
to  the  Jews  of  this  age,  for  it  allowed  them  to  account  for  the 
evil  in  the  world  by  laying  the  blame  on  seditious  angels. 
These  angels  are  not  yet  the  evil  spirits  who  have  rebelled 
against  God  and  organised  a  kingdom  hostile  to  his,  but  they 
are  on  the  way  to  it.  That,  in  fact,  the  old  heathen  gods  sur- 
vive in  these  patron  angels  of  the  nations  seems  evident.  A 
poem  now  incorporated  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  asserts 
that  Yahweh  himself  apportioned  the  nations  to  the  Sons  of 
God,  that  is,  to  the  angels,  reserving  Israel  for  himself  (Deut. 
32  :  8,  emended  text). 

In  the  minor  apocalypse  which  we  discussed  in  the  early 
part  of  this  chapter  we  noticed  a  statement  that  the  dead 
are  to  be  raised.  The  book  of  Daniel  reveals  the  way  in 
which  this  doctrine  came  to  have  importance  in  the  thought 


306  THE   RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

of  the  Maccabean  sufferers.  In  earlier  times  the  Hebrews 
had  no  definite  belief  in  a  future  life.  Sheol  (Hades  is  the 
Greek  equivalent)  was  conceived  as  a  place  in  which  there  is 
no  joy  and  no  life  unless  a  shadowy  existence  away  from  God 
and  the  light  of  day  may  be  called  life.  It  is  pictured  as  an 
uncanny  monster  which  opens  its  jaws  and  swallows  men. 
Sometimes  men  and  tents  descend  into  it  by  the  opening  of 
a  chasm  in  the  earth  (Num.  16  :  25-34).  Isaiah  threatens 
the  nations:  "Sheol  will  stretch  wide  its  jaws  and  open  its 
mouth  without  measure,  and  their  glory  and  their  multi- 
tude and  their  pomp  shall  descend  into  it"  (Isaiah  5  :  14). 
The  inhabitants  of  this  region  are  sometimes  thought  of  as 
asleep:  "Till  the  heavens  are  no  more  they  wake  not"  (Job 
14  :  12) ;  but  on  occasion  they  may  be  roused  so  as  to  notice 
what  is  going  on.  When  the  king  of  Babylon  goes  to  the 
underworld  Sheol  itself  stirs  up  the  shades  to  look  upon 
the  newcomer,  and  they  feel  the  shock  of  surprise  that  the 
mighty  ruler  of  an  empire  is  reduced  to  a  mere  shadow  like 
themselves  (Isaiah  14  :  9/.).  But  this  does  not  imply  that 
these  souls,  if  we  may  call  them  by  so  definite  a  name,  had 
any  real  life.  Certainly  there  was  no  theory  of  reward  and 
punishment  in  Sheol.  Speculation  on  this  subject  was,  in 
fact,  discouraged  by  the  Jewish  religion  because  the  worship 
of  the  manes  was  felt  to  be  contrary  to  the  will  of  Yahweh. 
Moreover,  the  early  documents — even  down  to  the  time 
when  the  book  of  Job  was  written — denied  the  possibility 
of  any  return  from  the  region  of  the  dead.  But  the  book  of 
Daniel  expressly  affirms  that  at  the  time  of  the  end  many 
of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake,  some 
to  everlasting  life  and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting 
contempt  (Daniel  12  :  2).  This  partial  resurrection  was 
inferred  by  a  logical  necessity  from  the  religious  belief  of 
the  times.  The  most  painful  thought  to  those  who  wit- 
nessed the  persecutions  of  Antiochus  was  that  the  martyrs 
who  were  faithful  even  unto  death  would  not  share  the  glory 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  That  kingdom  was  not  located 
in  Sheol;  it  was  not  located  in  heaven;  it  was  to  be  on  a 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  307 

renewed  and  purified  earth.  If  the  martyrs  were  to  have 
their  reward  they  must  be  raised  from  the  dead  and  allowed 
to  share  in  the  glories  of  the  kingdom.  Conversely,  the 
sinners — especially  the  renegade  Jews  who  had  conformed 
to  the  impious  command  of  the  persecutor,  perhaps  had 
turned  informers  against  their  brethren — had  not  had  their 
punishment,  for  they  had  often  gone  down  to  the  grave  full 
of  riches  and  honours.  If  justice  were  to  be  done,  these  also 
must  be  raised  to  suffer  the  shame  which  was  their  portion. 
Their  punishment,  like  the  reward  of  the  righteous,  is  to  take 
place  in  Jerusalem.  At  the  end  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  we 
read  that  the  men  who  come  to  Jerusalem  to  worship  shall 
look  upon  the  dead  bodies  of  those  who  have  transgressed: 
"For  their  worm  shall  not  die  neither  shall  their  fire  be 
quenched,  and  they  shall  be  an  abhorring  unto  all  flesh" 
(Isaiah  66  :  24).  The  spot  in  the  vicinity  of  Jerusalem  where 
the  sinners  shall  thus  suffer  shame  is  the  notorious  Valley  of 
Hinnom  the  scene  of  earlier  idolatrous  rites.  Its  name 
(Gehenna)  passed  over  into  later  Jewish  literature  as  that 
of  the  place  of  torment  for  evil  angels  as  well  as  for  evil  men. 
The  prominence  of  this  belief  in  Christian  and  Moslem  sys- 
tems is  well  known. 

The  book  of  Daniel,  as  has  already  been  intimated,  is  an 
example  of  a  kind  of  literature  which  flourished  in  the  sec- 
ond and  first  centuries  of  our  era  and  even  later.  It  is  the 
product  of  the  puritan  party,  so  often  opposed,  scorned,  and 
oppressed  by  the  wicked  or  careless  many.  Even  after  the 
persecution  of  Antiochus  ceased  this  party  remained  de- 
pressed and  pessimistic.  The  Maccabean  princes  were  far 
from  being  the  nursing  fathers  of  the  Church  which  they 
ought  to  have  been  according  to  the  ideas  of  these  Chasidim. 
The  conflicts  which  arose  in  the  time  of  John  Hyrcanus  be- 
tween the  Pharisees  (as  we  may  now  call  the  puritans)  and 
the  Sadducees  (adherents  of  the  ruling  house)  show  how  im- 
possible it  is  for  a  civil  administration  to  live  up  to  the  de- 
mands of  a  rigid  ritual  law.  From  this  time  on,  therefore,  we 
find  a  sharp  distinction  drawn  by  all  Jewish  writers  between 
the  righteous  and  the  wicked.  This  distinction  is  carried 


308  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

back  to  the  beginning  of  history,  and  ancient  worthies  are 
introduced  to  us  to  make  clear  the  eternal  conflict  between 
the  two  parties.  Of  these  the  favourite  seems  to  be  Enoch. 
This  antediluvian  patriarch  was  the  appropriate  teacher  of 
religious  lessons,  for,  according  to  tradition,  he  had  been  trans- 
lated to  the  presence  of  God  where  he  had  opportunity  to 
learn  heavenly  wisdom.  The  body  of  literature  which  gath- 
ered about  his  name  made  him  the  founder  of  astronomy  and 
the  regulator  of  the  calendar.  The  author  who  thus  presents 
him  to  us  has  a  religious  interest  in  his  stringent  demand  for 
a  Jewish  reckoning  of  the  year.  The  Sabbaths  and  festivals 
are  celebrated  in  heaven  as  well  as  on  earth,  and  the  days 
should  correspond.  If,  however,  a  miscalculation  be  made 
in  the  calendar,  men  will  be  found  observing  days  which  are 
not  truly  sacred  and  desecrating  those  which  God  has  set 
apart  as  holy.  Mohammed  was  moved  by  a  similar  belief 
when  he  forbade  intercalation.  This  point  of  view  is  fully 
stated  in  the  book  of  Jubilees  (Jubilees  6  :  30-32).  * 

Although  the  Enoch  literature  is  the  most  important  that 
has  come  down  to  us  in  this  class,  we  know  that  books  were 
published  under  the  names  of  Noah,  Moses,  Baruch,  Ezra, 
and  others.  Complete  discussion  of  them  would  take  a  vol- 
ume. Here  we  can  notice  only  their  leading  ideas.  The 
one  most  prominent  is  the  one  already  indicated  in  Daniel, 
that  is,  the  course  of  history  is  divinely  foreordained  so  that 
it  is  possible  to  calculate  the  time  of  the  end.  The  plan 
of  the  ages  is  set  down  on  heavenly  tablets,  and  chosen  men 
are  permitted  to  see  it.  Enoch  saw  all  that  was  on  the 
heavenly  tablets,  considered  and  read  the  book  concerning 
the  deeds  of  men,  all  the  children  of  flesh  down  to  the  latest 
generation.2  The  numbers  which  are  most  prominent  in 
these  schemes  are  seven  and  four.  Seven  is  distinctively 

1  The  obstinacy  of  the  author  of  Enoch  in  insisting  on  a  year  of  364 
days  (Enoch  82;  cf.  Secrets  of  Enoch,  48,  and  the  recently  discovered 
fragments  published  by  Schechter)  may  be  based  on  the  biblical  ac- 
count of  the  Deluge  which  makes  a  solar  year  ten  days  longer  than 
twelve  lunations. 

2  Enoch  81,  cf.  Jubilees  1  :  29,  where  the  angel  of  the  Presence  takes 
the  tables  of  the  divisions  of  the  years  and  shows  them  to  Moses, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  309 

the  sacred  number  of  the  Hebrews,  so  its  dominance  does 
not  surprise  us.  Four  was  suggested  to  the  author  of  Dan- 
iel by  the  four  world  empires  which  he  found  in  history, 
though  it  is  possible  that  some  early  mythological  scheme 
of  four  world  periods  influenced  his  thinking.  An  echo  of 
Daniel's  scheme  is  found  in  Enoch,  where  the  seventy  shep- 
herds of  the  nations  are  divided  into  four  groups  (Enoch 
89/.).  In  Enoch  we  find,  however,  the  statement  that  there 
will  be  seven  weeks  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  that  the 
Messianic  time  will  come  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  (Enoch 
93).  Other  documents  seem  to  have  computed  twelve  pe- 
riods (Ap.  Baruch  56  ff.). 

All  this  literature  is  pessimistic,  that  is,  it  regards  the 
present  age  as  one  of  degeneracy,  and  looks  for  no  relief 
until  God  shall  violently  reverse  the  present  order  and  bring 
in  a  new  age.  In  the  more  advanced  of  the  documents  the 
degeneracy  is  traced  to  the  wickedness  of  the  angels.  Jubi- 
lees tells  us  that  the  angelic  ministers  were  created  on  the 
first  day  of  the  creative  week.  They  were  placed  in  charge 
of  the  movements  of  the  planets,  the  rains,  the  winds,  and 
the  storms.  They  are  now  divided  into  good  and  bad. 
They  are  of  different  ranks,  the  highest  being  the  two,  or 
four,  or  six  archangels.  Precedents  may  be  found  in  Per- 
sian or  Babylonian  mythology.  The  activity  of  these  benef- 
icent angels  is  for  the  good  of  mankind.  They  appear  in 
battle  on  the  side  of  the  Jews  (II  Mac.  10  :  29).  They 
teach  Enoch  astronomy  and  the  art  of  writing. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  evil  angels  are  active  in  corrupt- 
ing mankind.  Their  fall  is  traced  to  their  love  for  mortal 
women,  the  account  of  which  is  given  in  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis. This  is  elaborated  so  that  we  learn  the  number  of  the 
rebels  to  be  two  hundred.  Their  leader  is  named  Shema- 
iah.  They  came  down  to  earth  in  the  days  of  Jared  (De- 
scent), and  the  place  of  their  conspiracy  was  Mount  Her- 
mon,  an  ancient  heathen  sanctuary  as  the  name  indicates. 
The  names  of  the  twenty  leaders  are  recited  for  us,  and  in 
some  passages  their  chief  is  identified  with  Azazel,  the  desert 


310  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

demon  who  plays  a  part  in  the  ritual  of  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment (Enoch  9:6;  10  :  4).  They  taught  their  wives  magic 
and  astrology  (Enoch  7/.),  showed  men  how  to  make  weap- 
ons for  each  other's  destruction,  and  taught  women  the  use 
of  cosmetics  and  jewelry.  Although  some  of  them  are  con- 
fined under  the  earth  until  the  day  of  final  judgment,  some 
of  them  are  allowed  to  roam  about  and  seduce  men  to  idol- 
atry and  other  sins  (Jubilees  10  :  1-12). 

Men  who  are  puzzled  to  account  for  the  existence  of  moral 
evil  in  a  world  created  good  find  a  certain  relief  in  thus 
laying  the  blame  upon  superhuman  free  agents.  The  au- 
thor of  Chronicles  had  not  hesitated  to  make  Satan  the 
inciter  to  sin,  where  the  older  writer  had  attributed  the  sug- 
gestion to  Yahweh  himself.  The  literature  now  before  us 
advances  further  in  the  same  line.  It  is  the  evil  one  who 
tries  to  kill  Moses  on  his  return  from  Midian,  and  it  is  he 
who  suggests  that  Abraham's  faith  be  tried  by  the  com- 
mand to  sacrifice  Isaac  (Jubilees  48:  2;  17: 16).  Ashmodeus 
(the  name  is  evidently  borrowed  from  Persia)  is  in  love  with 
a  Jewish  maiden  and  strangles  her  successive  bridegrooms  to 
the  number  of  seven  (Tobit  6  :  14).  He  is  finally  driven 
away  by  tne  help  of  Raphael.  It  is  only  a  short  step  to  the 
theory  that  each  pious  Jew  has  a  guardian  angel  in  constant 
attendance  upon  him  (Tobit  5  :  22). 

Yet,  when  all  is  said,  the  present  government  of  the  world  is 
largely  in  the  hands  of  the  evil  powers.  The  end  so  ardently 
longed  for  by  the  righteous  will  be  ushered  in  by  a  judgment 
in  which  these  world  rulers  will  be  called  to  account.  Enoch 
assures  us  that  the  Almighty  will  come  down  upon  Mount 
Sinai  with  the  myriads  of  his  angels  and  there  chastise  the 
wicked  for  all  their  ungodly  deeds  (Enoch  1  :  4-9).  Else- 
where the  scene  is  laid  in  the  Holy  Land  or,  specifically,  in 
Jerusalem  (47-53).  The  precedent  has  been  set  by  Joel, 
but  now  it  is  not  the  nations  of  earth  only  that  are  called 
to  the  bar.  The  Lord  of  the  sheep  (Israel)  has  the  recording 
angel  bring  the  book  in  which  he  has  entered  the  evil  deeds 
of  the  angel  shepherds  (90  :  20),  or  the  judgment  begins  with 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  311 

the  angels  who  sinned  in  the  antediluvian  time,  then  deals 
with  the  oppressive  shepherds,  condemns  next  the  renegade 
Israelites,  and  finally  justifies  those  who  have  observed  the 
Law.  After  this  the  old  temple  is  taken  away,  a  new  one  is 
brought,  and  the  Messiah  is  born  (90  :  28-38). 

The  variety  of  details  shows  the  composite  nature  of  this 
literature.  The  general  scheme,  however,  is  the  same:  The 
end  of  the  present  state  of  things  is  not  far  away,  and  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  about  to  be  set  up.  But  whether  it  will 
simply  renew  the  glories  of  Solomon,  whether  it  will  be 
supersensible,  whether  it  will  be  located  in  Palestine  or  in 
one  of  the  seven  heavens — on  these  points  we  find  a  variety 
of  views.  Daniel's  hope  of  a  resurrection  for  the  exemplary 
righteous,  especially  for  those  who  have  been  martyred  for 
the  faith,  is  improved  upon  until  we  get  a  general  resurrection. 
The  sufferers  of  the  Maccabean  age  express  their  confidence 
that  they  will  be  raised  (IV  Mac.  9  :  8/.),  and  one  writer 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  Judas  Maccabeus  was  moved  by 
his  belief  in  a  resurrection  to  offer  a  sin-offering  for  those 
who  had  died  in  their  defilement  (II  Mac.  12  :  43-45). 

The  expectation  thus  set  forth  in  varying  forms  may  be 
called  in  the  general  sense  Messianic,  but  the  individual 
Messiah  is  not  a  constant  figure  in  the  picture.  Where  he 
does  appear  it  is  not  always  clear  whether  he  is  thought  to 
be  transcendent,  a  ruler  for  eternity  or  for  a  thousand  years, 
or  whether  the  perpetuity  of  the  dynasty  in  successive  mem- 
bers is  intended.  To  make  room  for  his  reign  of  a  thousand 
years  two  resurrections  are  sometimes  posited,  one  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Messianic  age,  the  portion  of  exemplary 
Jews,  the  other  at  the  end  of  the  period,  when  the  whole  of 
mankind  will  be  revived  for  the  final  judgment.  In  one 
passage  Enoch  asserts  that  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  week 
of  the  world's  history  the  righteous  will  rise,  and  during  the 
eighth  week  they  will  execute  judgment  on  the  sinners. 
After  this,  in  the  tenth  week,  will  be  the  general  judgment, 
when:  "He  will  execute  judgment  on  the  angels  and  the 
first  heaven  will  depart,  and  a  new  heaven  will  appear,  and 


312  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

all  the  powers  of  heaven  will  shine  sevenfold  for  evermore, 
and  after  that  there  will  be  many  weeks  without  number  in 
goodness  and  righteousness,  and  sin  will  be  no  more  men- 
tioned" (Enoch  91  :  10-17;  cf.  Jubilees  21  :  24). 

The  Son  of  Man  who  appears  in  the  book  of  Daniel  is  a 
symbolic  figure  representative  of  the  people  of  Israel.  The 
writer  thought  of  the  coming  commonwealth  as  a  theocracy 
without  human  king.  A  part  of  the  Enoch  literature  takes 
the  same  view.  But  a  part  of  it  looks  for  a  personal  Messiah, 
king  of  Israel  and  vicegerent  of  Yahweh.  Enoch  borrows 
from  Daniel  the  figure  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  describes  him: 
"With  the  Ancient  of  Days  was  another  being  whose  coun- 
tenance had  the  appearance  of  a  man  and  his  face  was  full  of 
graciousness  like  one  of  the  holy  angels.  And  I  asked  the 
angel  who  went  with  me  concerning  that  son  of  man  who 
he  was  and  why  he  went  with  the  Ancient  of  Days;  and  he 
answered  me  and  said:  This  is  the  Son  of  Man  who  has 
righteousness,  with  whom  dwells  righteousness,  and  who 
reveals  all  the  treasures  of  that  which  is  hidden,  because  the 
Lord  of  Spirits  has  chosen  him,  and  his  lot  before  the  Lord 
of  Spirits  will  surpass  everything  in  uprightness  forever." 
There  follows  a  promise  that  the  Son  of  Man  shall  overcome 
all  the  kings  of  the  earth  who  oppose  themselves  to  him 
(Enoch  46).  The  language  might  be  construed  in  con- 
sistency with  the  vision  of  Daniel,  where  the  Son  of  Man 
stands  for  the  people,  but  when  the  next  chapter  goes  on  to 
say  that  the  prayer  of  the  righteous  ascends  before  the  Lord 
of  Spirits  in  his  days  (days  of  the  Son  of  Man)  it  seems 
clear  that  the  Son  of  Man  is  not  himself  the  personified 
righteous.  Here,  therefore,  we  have  the  fully  developed 
personal  Messiah,  who  will  come  to  judge  the  earth.  He  is, 
moreover,  a  superhuman  being,  one  whose  name  was  named 
before  the  Lord  of  Spirits,  before  the  sun  and  the  constella- 
tions and  the  stars  were  created:  "For  this  reason  was  he 
chosen  and  hidden  before  him  before  the  creation  of  the 
world,  and  from  eternity"  (48  :  1-6).  Enoch  saw  the  Elect 
One  of  righteousness  and  faith,  and  how  righteousness  shall 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE  313 

prevail  in  his  days,  and  the  righteous  shall  be  without  num- 
ber before  him  forever.  "  And  I  saw  his  dwelling  place  under 
the  wings  of  the  Lord  of  Spirits,  and  all  the  righteous  are 
before  him  beautifully  resplendent  as  lights  of  fire"  (39  :  6/.). 
Elsewhere  the  Elect  One  is  described  sitting  on  a  throne  and 
so  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  the  righteous  (48  :  3-5).  He  is 
said  to  judge  Azazel  and  the  wicked  angels  (55  :4),  and 
several  passages  might  be  quoted  to  show  his  office  as  judge 
in  heaven. 

We  have  before  us,  then,  the  fully  developed  theory  that 
the  Messiah  who  is  to  rule  the  coming  kingdom  is  a  super- 
human person,  pre-existent  in  heaven  and  only  waiting  for 
the  time  appointed  to  come  from  heaven  and  take  the 
throne.  He  was  created  before  the  stars,  but  is  kept  hidden 
until  the  day  of  judgment.  This  is  not  so  violent  a  hy- 
pothesis as  we  are  at  first  inclined  to  think  it.  If  Enoch, 
the  antediluvian  patriarch,  sees  all  these  things  in  vision, 
they  must  have  some  sort  of  existence  in  his  time  before 
they  actually  become  real  in  the  course  of  history.  It  is  not 
probable  that  the  writers  asked  themselves  whether  this  was 
a  real  or  an  ideal  pre-existence.  In  the  later  Jewish  con- 
ception many  things  existed  from  eternity,  or  at  least  from 
the  creation,  which  were  revealed  in  time — the  Law,  for  ex- 
ample. The  book  called  the  Secrets  of  Enoch  declares  that 
all  souls  were  created  in  the  beginning  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world  (Secrets  of  Enoch  23).  The  hypothesis  of  pre- 
existence  enables  the  author  of  Enoch  to  explain  the  vision 
of  Daniel  where  the  Son  of  Man  comes  on  the  clouds  of 
heaven.  To  the  oppressed  people  of  God  the  thought  of  an 
angelic  Messiah  would  be  most  welcome.  His  superhuman 
dignity  would  be  a  guarantee  of  power  and  permanency  for 
his  reign. 

While  this  literature  shows  that  the  Messianic  hope  was 
cherished  by  a  large  section  of  the  Jewish  people  in  this 
period,  it  also  shows  how  far  the  hope  was  from  being  con- 
sistent. The  future  glory  is  to  be  manifested  in  Jerusalem, 
but  Jerusalem  may  be  either  on  earth  or  in  heaven;  it  may  be 


314  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

a  new  Jerusalem,  a  new  creation,  or  it  may  be  something 
already  existing  in  heaven,  shown  to  Adam,  to  Abraham,  or 
to  Moses.  The  home  of  the  saints  may  be  in  the  paradise 
in  which  Adam  first  dwelt,  and  which  is  either  in  one  of  the 
heavens  or  on  the  earth,  in  the  far  east  or  in  the  far  west; 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  tree  of  life,  the  central  object  of 
that  paradise,  may  be  transplanted  to  Jerusalem  (Enoch  24, 
25,  and  32).  The  place  of  punishment  is  to  be  below  the 
earth  and  its  entrance  is  the  ill-omened  Valley  of  Hinnom. 
Located  thus,  just  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  it  will  con- 
tribute to  the  pleasures  of  the  righteous,  since  they  will  be 
able  to  contrast  their  own  happy  state  with  that  of  the 
damned  (Enoch  27,  62  :  12;  cf.  Isaiah  66  :  24).  Yet  the 
underworld  is  also  conceived  as  a  temporary  paradise,  one 
division  of  it  being  the  place  where  the  souls  of  the  righteous 
are  reserved  until  the  resurrection.  According  to  one  view, 
when  the  righteous  are  raised  the  wicked  will  simply  be  left 
in  this  Hades.  More  general  was  the  idea  of  a  judgment 
for  all  men.  The  Messianic  time  is  in  some  cases  thought 
to  last  only  a  thousand  years,  during  which  the  righteous  will 
enjoy  material  good,  will  possess  land  of  great  fruitfulness, 
will  sow  seed  that  will  increase  a  thousandfold,  and  will 
beget  a  thousand  children  (Enoch  10  :  17-22).  The  two 
monsters,  behemoth  and  leviathan,  will  be  slain  and  given 
to  the  righteous  for  food,  the  earth  will  bring  forth  a  thou- 
sandfold, each  vine  will  have  a  thousand  branches,  each 
branch  will  have  a  thousand  clusters,  each  cluster  a  thousand 
grapes,  each  grape  will  yield  a  cor  of  wine,  and  the  manna 
will  again  fall  from  heaven  so  that  no  one  need  hunger 
(Apocalypse  of  Baruch  29).  Similar  millennial  dreams  were 
cherished  in  the  Church,  as  we  well  know.  They  show  the 
power  which  the  apocalypses  exercised  over  the  minds  of 
those  who  sighed  for  the  redemption  of  Israel. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE 

BY  common  consent  the  book  of  Psalms  represents  the  cul- 
mination of  Israelitic  religion.  This  is  attested  by  the  New 
Testament  and  by  the  place  which  the  book  has  taken  and 
still  holds  in  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  the  culmination 
not  only  in  tone  but  also  in  time,  being  one  of  the  latest,  if 
not  the  latest,  of  the  Old  Testament  books.  The  tradition 
which  ascribes,  or  which  seems  to  ascribe,  a  large  number  of 
the  poems  to  David  as  author  is  now  generally  given  up.  It 
is  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that  the  collection  contains 
Maccabean  compositions,1  and  the  final  redaction  of  the 
book  took  place  not  long  before  the  beginning  of  our  era. 
This  being  so,  it  is  not  probable  that  any  portion  of  it  can  be 
older  than  the  Exile,  and  for  our  purpose  it  is  safest  to  see 
in  it  the  expression  of  Jewish  piety  of  the  latest  period. 
That  the  book  as  we  have  it  is  made  up  from  a  variety  of 
sources  is  evident  on  the  surface.  Poems  similar  in  tone  to 
the  Psalms  are  found  in  some  of  the  prophetic  books  and 
must  be  judged  to  be  late  insertions  in  those  books.2 

The  Psalter  is  a  book  of  devotion.  It  is  often  called  the 
hymn-book  of  the  second  temple,  but  this  is  somewhat  mis- 
leading. Some  parts  of  it  seem  to  have  been  contributed 
by  the  musical  guilds  (those  ascribed  to  the  sons  of  Korah, 
to  Asaph,  or  Jeduthun),  and  the  ascriptions  of  praise  which 
fill  the  last  section  of  the  book  are  appropriate  for  the 
public  service.  But  these  make  up  only  a  fraction  of  the 

1  The  most  convincing  example  is  Psalm  74. 

2  Examples  are  Isaiah  12  and  25  :  1-5,  the  psalm  of  Habakkuk,  al- 
ready discussed,  and  several  passages  in  Chronicles. 

315 


316  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

book.  Many  of  the  poems  are  distinctly  petitions  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  we  must  think  of  the  book  as  one  of  those 
compendia  of  prayers  such  as  our  fathers  often  used  for 
their  private  devotions.  One  of  the  most  widely  used  of 
the  Psalms  ends  with  the  petition:  "Let  the  words  of  my 
mouth  and  the  meditation  of  my  heart  be  acceptable  in  thy 
sight,  Yahweh  my  Rock  and  my  Redeemer"  (19  :  15).  The 
sentence  indicates  that  the  preceding  verses  had  been  the 
murmured  meditation  of  the  reader  in  the  time  set  apart  for 
prayer.  We  see  also  that  the  long  panegyric  of  the  Law 
(Psalm  119)  can  never  have  been  a  part  of  the  temple  liturgy, 
and  must  have  been  composed  as  an  alphabet  of  loyalty 
by  a  devotee  of  Israel's  legal  system.  The  believer  was  ac- 
customed to  engage  in  prayer  three  times  a  day,  as  one  of 
the  poems  tells  us  (55  :  18),  and  the  use  of  a  written  guide 
to  thought  by  those  who  felt  unable  to  give  extemporary 
expression  to  their  aspirations  cannot  surprise  us. 

Although  the  collection  had  no  direct  connection  with 
the  temple  service,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  was 
used  in  the  synagogues.  The  synagogue  was  originally 
the  school  in  which  the  people  were  taught  the  Law.  But 
people  who  gathered  for  instruction  in  religion  were  led  to 
engage  in  common  prayer,  especially  at  times  when  the  tem- 
ple was  inaccessible.  The  Psalms  being  expressions  of  the 
desires,  beliefs,  perplexities,  and  aspirations  of  the  pious 
naturally  suggested  themselves  as  the  appropriate  formulae 
for  such  common  worship.  The  much-debated  question  of 
the  ego  of  the  Psalter  is  answered  by  this  reflection.  The 
most  original  of  the  Psalms  are  the  expression  of  individual 
experience  and  individual  emotion.  But  the  communion  of 
saints  is  communion  in  just  these  experiences.  Hence  came 
the  adoption  of  these  compositions  for  the  public  service. 
Then  came  the  time  when  the  more  gifted  members  of  the 
community,  conscious  of  the  common  faith,  ventured  to 
compose  psalms  which  should  utter  the  faith,  joy,  or  contri- 
tion which  were  shared  by  all.  It  is  this  which  gives  the 
book  its  value;  it  is  the  expression  of  a  piety  which  was 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  317 

shared  by  a  considerable  number  of  men  whose  situation  was 
the  same. 

The  majority  of  the  Psalms  are  not  didactic,  though  there 
are  a  few  which  may  be  so  classed.  The  great  majority  are 
expressions  of  the  religious  feeling.  They  are  "contempla- 
tive or  intuitive,  using  the  religious  imagination  or  fancy 
rather  than  the  logical  faculty  and  the  reasoning  powers."  l 
But  since  the  feelings  expressed  imply  certain  beliefs  we  have 
no  difficulty  in  ascertaining,  at  least  in  outline,  the  theology 
of  the  book.  First  of  all,  of  course,  Yahweh  God  of  Israel  is 
the  God  of  the  universe  and  the  only  God.  For  the  most 
part  this  is  so  thoroughly  assumed  that  the  gods  of  the 
nations  are  not  alluded  to  at  all.  Where  reference  is  made 
to  them  it  is  to  emphasise  their  impotence.  It  is,  indeed, 
said  that  all  the  gods  cast  themselves  down  before  him 
(97  :  7),  but  the  reference  may  be  to  the  angelic  satraps  of 
which  we  had  evidence  in  the  book  of  Daniel.  The  assur- 
ance that  the  gods  of  the  nations  are  mere  silver  and  gold, 
the  work  of  men's  hands,  reads  like  an  echo  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah  (115  :  3-7).  Yet,  that  the  believer  was  tempted  at 
times  to  pay  some  sort  of  reverence  to  these  other  alleged 
divinities  is  indicated  by  the  energetic  rejection  of  such  a 
thought  occasionally  expressed  (16  :  1-4). 

It  is  the  believer's  comfort  that  Yahweh  is  all-powerful: 
"  Our  God  is  in  the  heavens;  he  has  done  whatever  he  pleased  " 
(115  :  3).  A  well-known  poem  emphasises  the  omnipres- 
ence as  well  as  the  omnipotence  of  Yahweh:  "If  I  ascend  to 
heaven  thou  art  there;  if  I  make  my  bed  in  Sheol  thou  art 
there;  if  I  take  the  wings  of  the  dawn  and  alight  in  the  utter- 
most part  of  the  sea,  even  there  would  thy  hand  lead  me  and 
thy  right  hand  hold  me"  (139  :  7-10).  The  older  theology 
had  not  risen  to  the  thought  that  Yahweh  was  present  in 
the  dark  realms  of  the  dead;  even  some  of  the  Psalmists  think 
that  the  shades  of  the  departed  are  no  longer  before  him; 
but  our  author  reserves  nothing  from  the  divine  omniscience. 

1  Briggs,  Commentary  on  the  Psalms  (International  Critical  Commen- 
tary), I,  p.  xcvi. 


318  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

The  thought  of  the  majesty  of  Yahweh  inspires  other  singers, 
and  the  glory  of  his  work  in  creating  and  sustaining  the  world 
of  nature  is  a  frequent  topic.  I  need  only  allude  to  the  fa- 
miliar nineteenth  and  the  even  more  attractive  one  hundred 
and  fourth.  Briefer  lyrics  call  upon  all  nature  to  join  in  praise 
of  the  Creator — mountains  and  all  hills,  fruit-trees  and  all 
cedars,  beasts  wild  and  tame,  creeping  things  and  winged 
birds  (148).  The  thunder-storm  is  special  evidence  of  the 
divine  power,  but  the  ordinary  and  beneficent  processes  of 
the  seasons  are  also  ascribed  to  him:  "He  crowns  the  year 
with  his  goodness  and  his  paths  drop  fatness"  (65  :  9-12). 
Though  Yahweh  is  God  of  the  whole  earth,  yet  he  is  in 
special  relations  with  Israel:  "Happy  the  people  whose  God 
is  Yahweh,  the  people  he  has  chosen  for  himself  as  his 
heritage"  (33  :  12).  It  is  for  the  sake  of  Israel  that  he  gov- 
erns the  world.  The  history  of  early  times  is  recited  to 
prove  the  election  of  this  people.  And  in  the  favourable 
events  of  the  present  time  the  believer  recognises  his  merciful 
intervention:  "Thou  hast  pleaded  my  right  and  my  cause; 
hast  sat  on  the  throne  a  righteous  judge;  thou  didst  threaten 
the  heathen,  destroyedst  the  wicked,  didst  blot  out  their 
name  for  ever  and  ever"  (9  : 4/.).  In  present  distress  the  con- 
trast between  the  earlier  presence  of  Yahweh  with  his  people 
and  the  present  apparent  desertion  is  affectingly  dwelt  upon 
(44).  This  contrast  was  a  frequent  trial  to  the  believer,  but 
for  the  most  part  faith  was  able  to  triumph  over  depression 
and  comfort  itself  with  the  thought  that  Yahweh  will  yet  pro- 
tect his  own.  His  attributes  are,  in  fact,  kindness,  fidelity, 
and  justice:  "Thy  kindness  reaches  up  to  the  firmament,  thy 
faithfulness  to  the  heavens;  thy  righteousness  is  like  the 
mountains  of  God,  thy  judgments  like  the  great  deep" 
(36  :  5/.;  cf.  33  :  1-10).  Gratitude  for  present  mercies  has 
furnished  the  form  of  thanksgiving  for  all  generations  of  be- 
lievers (103).  Yahweh  is  thought  to  reside  in  Jerusalem 
and  also  in  heaven.  From  his  throne  above  he  is  able  to 
observe  all  the  actions  of  men.  Here  he  sits  as  judge,  de- 
stroys the  sinners,  but  delivers  those  who  fear  him  (9  :  8/.; 


THE  TREASURE   OF  THE  HUMBLE  319 

33  :  13,  52).  His  judgment  is  not  based  on  actions  alone; 
he  tries  heart  and  reins  (7  :  10).  He  hates  the  doers  of 
iniquity;  the  arrogant  dare  not  appear  before  him;  he 
abhors  men  of  blood  and  deceit  (5  :  4-6). 

The  religion  of  these  writers,  then,  may  be  defined  as  faith 
in  a  faithful  God.  When  faint-hearted  friends  exhort  the 
believer  to  flee  as  a  bird  to  the  mountains,  he  replies  that  his 
trust  is  in  Yahweh,  who  dwells  in  Jerusalem  and  who  holds 
the  righteous  dear  (11  :  1,  5).  In  the  midst  of  foes  when 
many  say  that  there  is  no  help  for  him  in  God  the  believer 
sleeps  peacefully  because  Yahweh  sustains  him  (3  :  6;  4  :  8/.) 
The  fullest  expression  is  in  the  Christian  as  well  as  Jewish 
classic  (91),  where  the  angels  guard  the  righteous  so  that  his 
foot  does  not  slip.  Even  those  Psalms  which  were  written 
in  deep  despondency  usually  end  with  an  expression  of  trust. 
It  is  the  inextinguishable  conviction  of  the  authors  that 
Yahweh  is  the  God  of  the  oppressed :  "  He  does  not  forget  the 
cry  of  the  humble;  for  the  groaning  of  the  poor  he  will  arise 
and  put  him  out  of  danger"  (12  :  6/.;  cf.  9  :  10-13).  He 
is  father  of  the  fatherless  and  judge  of  the  widow  (68  :  6). 
He  is  near  the  broken-hearted  (34  :  19).  All  conceivable 
figures  of  speech  are  used  to  express  this  faith:  "Yahweh  is 
a  rock,  a  deliverer,  a  fortress,  a  strong  tower,  a  shield,  a  horn 
of  victory,  a  stronghold"  (18  :  2).  He  is  the  light  and  salva- 
tion of  the  faithful  so  that  they  will  not  fear  though  the 
earth  be  removed.  The  faithful  are  those  who  wait  upon 
Yahweh,  who  look  to  him  as  servants  look  to  the  hand  of 
the  master  (123).  On  occasion  of  victory  vouchsafed  to  the 
Jewish  arms  this  faith  rises  to  joyous  triumph  (46),  and  in 
quiet  times  it  expresses  itself  in  thanksgiving  and  content- 
ment (103).  The  believer  who  is  exiled  from  the  temple  is 
consumed  by  thirst  for  the  presence  of  Yahweh  like  the  thirst 
of  the  hart  in  times  of  drought  (42).  The  joy  of  religion 
leads  men  to  shout  aloud  in  praise  of  Yahweh,  and  even  rises 
to  the  affirmation  that  he  has  not  dealt  with  any  nation  as 
he  has  dealt  with  Israel.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  inter- 
pret all  these  affirmations  as  expressions  of  national  feeling. 


320  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

The  personal  note  comes  out  very  clearly  in  those  Psalms 
which  appeal  to  Yahweh  as  shepherd,  guide,  or  host,  and 
which  commit  the  believer's  life  and  lot  to  him  (23,  31,  16). 

This  joy  in  the  Lord  is  evidence  that  legalism  is  not  in- 
consistent with  deep  and  sincere  piety.  For  it  is  clear  that 
the  Psalmists  are  wholly  devoted  to  the  Mosaic  Law  as  the 
expressed  will  of  God  and  the  binding  rule  of  life  for  man. 
The  righteous  man  is  the  one  who  studies  day  and  night  in 
the  Law  (1  :  2).  The  perfection  of  Yahweh's  work  in  nature 
is  parallel  to  the  perfection  of  his  revelation  in  the  Law 
(19). l  One  writer  cannot  say  enough  in  praise  of  the  testi- 
monies, statutes,  precepts,  commandments,  and  judgments 
of  Yahweh  (119).  In  order  to  induce  the  present  generation 
to  obey  the  Tora  the  story  of  the  wilderness  wandering  is 
rehearsed  (78  and  elsewhere).  Prominence  is  given  to  the 
ethical  precepts,  but  the  ritual  is  prized  as  well.  The  man 
who  washes  his  hands  in  innocency  does  it  that  he  may  go 
about  the  altar  in  the  sacrificial  procession.  The  not  infre- 
quent exhortation  to  pay  one's  vows  or  to  sacrifice  sacrifices 
of  righteousness  is  to  be  taken  literally.  Religion  includes 
affection  for  the  temple.  The  grief  of  the  exile  is  made 
poignant  by  the  recollection  of  the  time  when  he  was  priv- 
ileged to  take  part  in  the  festival  procession  (42  :  5).  Blessed 
is  the  man  who  dwells  in  the  temple  (65  :  5)  even  as  a  door- 
keeper (84  : 11).  Jerusalem  partakes  of  this  affection  be- 
cause it  is  the  residence  of  the  great  king,  that  is,  of  Yahweh 
himself,  and  the  Psalmist  is  confident  that  the  holy  city  is 
established  forever  (48,  also  27  :  4-6,  and  elsewhere). 

This  distinctly  Jewish  colouring  is  apparently  contradicted 
by  some  passages  which  declare  that  God  does  not  require 
sacrifice  (40),  and  one  writer  thinks  it  necessary  to  confute 
the  popular  notion  that  Yahweh  eats  the  flesh  of  bulls  and 
drinks  the  blood  of  goats  (50).  These  expressions  are  in  part 
echoes  of  the  prophetic  opposition  to  the  ritual;  in  part  they 
indicate  that  religion  is  more  spiritual  than  in  the  days 

1  Whether,  in  fact,  the  two  parts  of  this  Psalm  are  by  the  same  author 
does  not  affect  our  estimate. 


THE  TREASUKE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  321 

when  the  ritual  was  all  in  all.  The  believer  who  is  remote 
from  the  temple  finds  in  prayer  a  substitute  for  sacrifice,  and 
is  conscious  that  his  communion  with  God  is  real  though 
without  the  customary  ritual  accompaniment.  The  writers, 
however,  do  not  intend  to  do  away  with  sacrifice,  for  almost 
in  the  same  breath  in  which  they  say  that  sacrifice  is  not 
required  they  pray  that  the  offerings  may  be  regularly 
brought  (50  :  23;  51:  21;  66  :  13-15).  The  fact  is  that  the 
worshippers  found  satisfaction  in  the  forms  handed  down  by 
tradition,  yet  have  come  to  the  consciousness  that  sacrifice 
without  obedience  is  worthless.  Obedience  to  the  Law,  in- 
cluding its  ritual  requirements,  is  to  them  the  whole  duty 
of  man. 

Yet,  undoubtedly,  ethical  precepts  take  a  large  place  in 
the  thoughts  of  these  writers.  Worship  is  unacceptable  if 
offered  by  the  unrighteous.  He  who  is  to  be  Yahweh's  guest 
on  the  temple  mount  must  have  clean  hands  and  a  pure 
heart,  must  walk  in  uprightness  and  do  righteousness,  must 
speak  truth  in  his  heart,  not  slander  nor  defraud  nor  take 
usury;  must  honour  the  pious  and  take  no  false  oath  (15). 
This  decalogue  almost  deserves  a  place  beside  the  other  one 
with  which  we  are  familiar.  The  profession  of  a  righteous 
man  is:  "I  have  followed  Yahweh's  paths  and  have  not 
wickedly  departed  from  my  God;  ever  present  to  me  are  all 
his  decrees,  his  precepts  I  keep  ever  in  mind"  (18  :  22).  The 
man  called  to  public  office  resolves  not  to  set  any  base  thing 
before  his  eyes,  and  adds:  "Whoso  privily  slandereth  his 
neighbor  him  will  I  destroy;  him  that  has  a  high  look  and 
a  proud  heart  will  I  not  suffer;  my  eyes  shall  be  upon  the 
faithful  of  the  land  that  they  may  dwell  with  me,  he  that 
walks  in  a  perfect  way  shall  minister  unto  me"  (101:  3-6). 

The  character  of  the  righteous  is  brought  out  by  its  con- 
trast with  that  of  the  opposite  party,  and  we  are  scarcely 
ever  allowed  to  forget  that  the  wicked  were  distinctly  in  evi- 
dence in  the  community  in  which  these  poems  took  shape. 
The  conditions  in  Jerusalem  (for  most  of  the  Psalms  seem 
to  have  been  composed  in  the  sacred  city)  appear,  in  fact,  to 


322  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

have  been  anything  but  ideal.  The  opposition  of  parties 
reaches  a  frightful  pitch  in  some  Psalms.  The  city  is  de- 
scribed as  full  of  strife,  violence,  oppression,  and  guile.  This 
comes  not  from  the  heathen,  which  might  be  borne;  it  is  from 
men  allied  by  blood  and  ostensibly  by  religion  with  the  com- 
plainant: "Smoother  than  butter  is  his  mouth,  but  his  heart 
is  war;  more  glib  than  oil  are  his  words,  yet  they  are  drawn 
swords"  (55  : 22).  Those  imprecations  in  some  of  the 
Psalms,  which  have  given  so  much  trouble  to  apologetic  ex- 
positors, are  evidence  of  the  same  state  of  feeling.1  No  doubt 
the  writers  were  confident  that  their  cause  was  the  cause  of 
God  and  that  they  were  justified  in  hating  them  that  hate 
Yahweh.  The  men  so  described  were,  moreover,  apparently 
morally  defective.  They  are  accused  of  deceit;  they  dig  a 
pit  for  the  righteous  or  hide  a  snare  to  catch  him,  that  they 
may  take  the  poor  in  their  net;  they  lurk  by  the  way  like  a 
lion  (52  :  3-6;  5  :  9-11).  The  crowning  evidence  of  their  de- 
pravity is  that  they  do  not  believe  in  God  (14).  This  may 
not  mean  a  theoretical  atheism,  which  was  always  foreign 
to  the  thought  of  the  Jew.  It  means  rather  that  these 
evil  men  did  not  believe  in  Yahweh's  active  government 
of  the  world.  They  do  not  consider  the  works  of  Yahweh; 
they  say:  "He  does  not  see,  he  hides  his  face"  (10:4 
and  11). 

The  righteous  poor,  oppressed  by  the  unscrupulous  rich, 
here  make  their  voice  of  protest  heard.  They  characterise 
themselves  as  the  humble,  the  contrite,  the  needy,  while  the 
opposition  is  made  up  of  the  proud,  the  arrogant,  the  scoffers. 
The  comfort  of  the  believer  is  the  thought  that  Yahweh  will 
judge  the  wicked:  "His  eyes  behold,  his  eyelids  try,  the  sons 
of  men;  he  will  recompense  the  righteous,  but  on  the  wicked 
he  will  rain  coals  of  fire  and  brimstone"  (11:  4/.;  cf.  92  :  8). 
The  theory  of  reward  is,  therefore,  the  same  that  we  have 
met  elsewhere,  and  which  gave  the  author  of  Job  such  mis- 
givings. He  who  desires  many  days  should  keep  his  tongue 

1  For  example,  69  :  23-29  and  109.  False  friends  are  denounced  in 
35  :  11 /.  and  41  :  6-11. 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  323 

from  evil  and  his  lips  from  speaking  guile;  should  turn  from 
evil  and  do  good,  seek  peace  and  pursue  it  (34  :  12-14; 
37  :  25).  The  discordance  between  the  theory  and  the  facts 
of  life  does  not  altogether  escape  observation,  however,  and 
in  some  cases  it  calls  forth  earnest,  we  might  say  agonised, 
protests.  Scepticism  like  that  of  Koheleth  threatened  some 
minds.  The  observer  sees,  to  be  sure,  that  riches  and  honours 
do  not  save  their  possessor  from  the  common  fate:  "Man 
that  is  in  honour  abideth  not,  he  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish  " 
(49  :  21).  But  this  is  an  unsatisfactory  solution,  and  the 
problem  still  rankles:  "Surely  in  vain  have  I  kept  my  heart 
pure  and  washed  my  hands  in  innocency;  for  all  the  day  long 
am  I  plagued,  and  my  chastisement  starts  afresh  every 
morning"  (73  :  13/.).  This  is  what  one  of  these  tempted 
ones  thinks,  though  he  is  able  to  reassure  himself,  rinding,  like 
the  friends  of  Job,  that  the  feet  of  the  wicked  are  set  on  slip- 
pery ground  and  that  they  will  be  hurled  to  ruin  in  a  moment. 
So  another  expresses  the  assurance  that  the  transgressors 
will  be  extirpated  together,  and  that  the  future  will  bring 
destruction  to  the  wicked  (37) . 

Under  a  complicated  Law  the  misfortunes  of  the  believer 
may  in  part  be  accounted  for  by  the  hypothesis  that  they  are 
sent  in  punishment  for  unwitting  sins.  And  there  is  also  in 
the  Psalms  a  lively  consciousness  that  afflictions  accomplish 
the  purification  of  those  who  are  tried  by  them.  But  many 
experiences  of  life  are  perplexing,  even  when  all  allowance  is 
made  for  this  theory.  The  prosperity  of  the  wicked  con- 
trasted with  the  misfortunes  of  the  righteous  causes  de- 
spondency, and  many  of  the  Psalms  strike  this  note.  In 
time  of  sickness  the  believer  inquires  anxiously  for  the  sin 
which  has  brought  this  upon  him.  The  so-called  penitential 
Psalms  seem  to  have  been  called  out  by  experiences  of  this 
kind:  "My  wounds  are  noisome  and  fester  because  of  my 
folly;  I  am  sore  oppressed  and  cast  down,  I  go  in  mourning 
all  the  day  long;  for  my  loins  are  full  of  decay,  and  there  is 
naught  of  soundness  in  my  flesh;  I  am  wholly  benumbed  and 
sore  bruised,  I  groan  louder  than  the  roar  of  the  lion" 


324  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

(38  :  4-9).  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  is  a  de- 
scription of  anything  else  than  a  literal  sickness.  Confession 
of  sin  in  such  a  case  is  not  evidence  of  any  deep  depravity 
from  which  the  sufferer  has  just  awakened;  it  is  rather  a 
logical  deduction  from  the  belief  that  Yahweh  punishes  in 
this  life.  The  prayer  that  one  may  be  kept  from  secret  sin 
— that  is,  unwitting  violation  of  the  Law — shows  the  anxiety 
of  conscience  produced  in  sensitive  souls  by  a  complicated 
code.  At  the  same  time  we  must  remember  that  the  faith 
of  the  sufferer  was  usually  able  to  triumph  over  his  de- 
spondency and  find  peace  in  the  assurance  that  God  for- 
gives. The  blessedness  of  forgiveness  is  vividly  brought 
before  us  by  the  experience  of  one  who  had  found  relief  in 
confession  (32).  The  classic  example  (51)  shows  a  deep 
desire  for  purity,  prays  for  a  clean  heart  and  steadfast 
spirit,  and  finds  in  Yahweh  the  helper  who  is  able  and  willing 
to  confer  this  boon. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  danger  of  self-righteousness  is  not 
remote.  The  observer  of  the  Law  in  time  of  prosperity  con- 
gratulates himself  that  he  is  being  rewarded  for  the  clean- 
ness of  his  hands.  A  clear  conscience  boldly  invites  God  to 
judge  him,  for  he  has  walked  in  integrity  (26  : 1/.).  In  some 
cases  it  is  evident  that  the  speaker  who  uses  these  Pharisaic 
expressions  is  not  an  individual,  but  the  community  of  the 
faithful.  Protestations  of  fidelity  on  the  part  of  the  company 
of  believers  who  are  conscious  of  their  devotion  to  Yahweh 
are  less  objectionable  than  they  would  be  in  the  mouth  of  a 
single  individual.  The  most  conspicuous  example  of  self- 
righteousness  must  apparently  be  judged  from  this  point  of 
view  (18  :  21-25).  In  the  mouth  of  David  this  paragraph 
would  be  evident  hypocrisy  or  else  egregious  self-deceit.  If, 
however,  it  be  the  boast  of  the  righteous  remnant  which 
remained  faithful  to  Yahweh  when  the  whole  power  of  the 
Syrian  kingdom  was  brought  to  bear  upon  them  to  induce 
apostasy,  we  can  at  least  understand  it  and  to  some  extent 
justify  it.  Fully  intelligible  is  the  protest  of  the  community 
in  the  midst  of  persecution,  setting  forth  that  it  has  not 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  325 

deserved  Yahweh's  apparent  indifference  to  their  sufferings 
(44  :  18/.). 

Undoubtedly  the  temptation  of  the  believer  became  most 
acute  in  times  like  this,  when  the  nation  seemed  threatened 
with  extinction.  They  protest  that  it  is  for  Yahweh's  sake 
that  they  are  slain,  and  yet  he  seems  not  to  take  their  part: 
"For  thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long,  and  are  ac- 
counted as  sheep  for  the  slaughter.  Wherefore  hidest  thou 
thy  face,  and  forgettest  our  affliction  and  our  oppression?" 
(44 :  23  and  25.)  Most  agonising  of  all  was  the  thought  that 
the  temple,  Yahweh's  own  house  and  the  centre  around  which 
clung  the  prayers  and  aspirations  of  the  faithful,  was  given 
over  to  desecration  by  the  heathen  (79).  The  pious  were 
not  only  precluded  from  paying  their  vows  at  the  sanctuary 
hallowed  by  tradition,  they  were  compelled  to  hear  the 
taunt:  "Where  now  is  your  God?"  A  partial  solution  of 
the  problem  was  found  in  the  old  prophetic  declaration 
that  the  sinful  nation  was  being  punished:  Yahweh's  wrath 
has  flamed  out  against  an  unfaithful  Israel,  and  he  has, 
therefore,  given  them  over  into  the  power  of  the  enemy  (74), 
and  goes  not  forth  with  their  armies  (60  :  3-6).  But  how 
was  it  consonant  with  the  justice  of  God  to  involve  the  right- 
eous in  the  punishment  of  the  wicked,  and,  in  fact,  to  throw 
the  brunt  upon  them?  For  it  was  evident  that  it  was  just 
the  pious  who  suffered  most  in  these  calamities.  All  that  we 
can  say  is  that  these  believers  never  came  to  a  complete  solu- 
tion of  the  difficulty,  but  that  for  the  most  part  they  were 
able  to  hold  on  to  their  faith  in  spite  of  it.  The  complaint 
that  Yahweh  stands  aloof  is  in  itself  an  expression  of  the 
hope  that  it  will  not  always  be  thus.  When  the  enemy  says 
of  the  pious,  "There  is  no  help  for  him  in  God,"  or  when 
faint-hearted  friends  declare,  "The  foundations  are  de- 
stroyed, what  has  the  righteous  accomplished?"  (11  :  4)  the 
believer  answers:  "Yahweh's  throne  is  in  heaven;  his  eyes 
behold,  his  eyelids  try,  the  children  of  men."  In  the  darkest 
hour,  when  a  conspiracy  of  the  surrounding  nations  threatens 
Jerusalem,  the  Psalmist  is  able  to  reassure  himself  and  his 


326  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

fellow  believers  that  Yahweh  will  shine  forth  as  the  God  of 
vengeance  and  that  he  has  set  his  king  on  Zion,  the  sacred 
hill  (94;  cf.  2  and  83). 

We  have  seen  that  in  this  period  the  belief  in  a  future 
life  was  struggling  for  recognition.  Koheleth's  energetic  re- 
jection of  it  shows  that  some  men  were  insisting  on  it,  prob- 
ably as  affording  a  solution  for  these  very  problems  of  the 
divine  government.  The  majority  of  the  Psalmists  seem 
untouched  by  this  innovation.  The  affirmations  are  so  clear 
as  to  admit  of  no  mistake :  "  In  death  we  no  longer  remember 
thee;  in  Sheol  who  praises  thee?"  (6  :  6.)  "In  the  very  day 
in  which  a  man's  breath  goes  forth  he  returns  to  the  dust  and 
his  thoughts  perish"  (146  :  4).  These  two  statements  from 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  book  may  be  taken  as  typ- 
ical of  the  general  belief  of  the  Psalmists.  And  this  general 
belief  explains  the  despair  which  some  of  them  express  in 
view  of  the  approach  of  death.  Had  they  supposed  that 
death  was  entrance  upon  a  larger  life,  or  that  it  would  in- 
troduce them  into  the  immediate  presence  of  God,  they 
would  have  welcomed  instead  of  dreading  it.  The  thought 
which  threw  them  into  despair  was  that  passing  out  of  this 
life  they  would  be  cut  off  from  the  presence  of  Yahweh  and 
the  opportunity  of  worship:  "What  profit  hast  thou  in  my 
blood,  that  I  should  go  down  to  the  pit?  Shall  the  dust 
praise  thee;  shall  it  declare  thy  fidelity?"  (30  :  10.)  Even 
more  explicitly:  "Wilt  thou  show  wonders  to  the  dead? 
Shall  the  shades  arise  and  praise  thee?  Shall  thy  loving- 
kindness  be  declared  in  the  grave,  or  thy  faithfulness  in  the 
abyss?"  (88  :  ll/.)  The  problem  of  the  afflictions  of  the 
righteous  is  nowhere  solved  by  the  intimation  that  their 
reward  will  be  given  after  death,  nor  do  those  who  complain 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  reassure  themselves  by  the 
thought  that  punishment  will  come  in  another  world.  Re- 
flection on  the  brevity  of  human  life,  in  contrast  with  God's 
eternity,  is  not  relieved  by  any  suspicion  that  man  may 
have  another  life  awaiting  him  (90). 

As  to  the  prevailing  theory,  then,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  327 

A  few  isolated  passages  seem,  however,  to  show  some  hope 
of  future  blessedness,  though  even  in  these  there  is  some 
question  whether  in  our  interpretation  we  are  not  influenced 
by  Christian  ideas.  The  religious  realisation  of  the  presence 
of  Yahweh  would  seem  to  lead  to  a  hope  that  this  presence 
would  not  be  withdrawn  at  death.  When  the  believer  as- 
serts that  Yahweh  is  his  share  and  his  portion,  and  adds, 
"Yahweh  I  keep  ever  before  me;  with  him  on  my  right  hand 
I  shall  not  be  moved"  (16  :  9),  he  may  have  hoped  that  even 
death  would  not  divide  him  from  the  object  of  his  affection. 
Moreover,  occasional  intimations  that  Yahweh's  power  ex- 
tends even  to  Sheol  point  in  the  same  direction.  To  all 
appearance  a  definite  hope  for  the  future  is  expressed  by  the 
writer  just  quoted,  who  goes  on  to  say:  "Therefore  glad  is 
my  heart  and  my  liver  rejoices,  my  body  also  shall  rest  in 
peace;  for  thou  wilt  not  commit  me  to  Sheol,  nor  suffer  thy 
faithful  one  to  see  the  pit;  thou  teachest  me  the  path  of  life; 
in  thy  presence  is  fulness  of  joy,  fair  gifts  in  thy  right  hand 
forever"  (16  :  9-11).  Yet  in  spite  of  appearances  it  is  still 
possible  that  the  author  was  thinking  of  a  long  and  happy 
life  which  he  hoped  to  enjoy  on  the  earth  and  in  the  presence 
of  Yahweh  in  Jerusalem.  More  explicit,  however,  is  the  fol- 
lowing: "Yet  do  I  stay  by  thee  forever;  thou  boldest  my 
right  hand  fast;  thou  leadest  me  according  to  thy  counsel 
and  wilt  afterward  take  me  in  glory.  Whom  have  I  in 
heaven  but  thee;  whom  besides  thee  do  I  care  for  on  earth? 
My  body  and  my  heart  may  pass  away,  but  the  rock  of  my 
heart  and  my  portion  evermore  is  God"  (73  :  23-26).  It 
seems  clear  that  the  poet  expects  his  nearness  to  God  to 
endure  after  his  heart  and  his  body  have  passed  away.  And 
although  the  text  is  not  free  from  difficulty,  we  may  under- 
stand the  "taking  to  glory"  of  a  dwelling  with  God  after 
death.  The  verb  used  is  the  same  which  describes  Enoch's 
translation,  and  it  was,  of  course,  universally  conceded  that 
the  patriarch  was  taken  to  the  presence  of  God  and  not  rele- 
gated to  Sheol.  Our  author  can  hardly  have  expected  his 
case  to  be  as  exceptional  as  that  of  Enoch,  but  his  faith 


328  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

would  not  allow  him  to  suppose  that  even  death  could  sepa- 
rate him  from  his  God.  The  author  of  Daniel  knows  of  a 
resurrection  for  the  righteous  few,  and  our  author  may  have 
had  an  esoteric  doctrine  assuring  him  that  special  favour 
would  be  granted  to  the  faithful  in  another  life. 

The  hope  most  widely  cherished  by  the  Jews  was  that 
Yahweh  would  intervene  in  the  affairs  of  men  and  set  up 
his  kingdom  in  the  near  future.  This  was  partly  a  corollary 
from  the  belief  in  the  divine  justice:  "He  who  planted  the 
ear  shall  he  not  hear?  He  who  formed  the  eye  shall  he  not 
see?  He  that  instructs  the  nations  shall  he  not  correct, 
even  he  who  teaches  man  knowledge?"  (94  :  9/.)  "Yah- 
weh looks  from  heaven  at  the  children  of  men  to  see  whether 
there  is  any  wise,  any  that  seeks  after  God"  (14  :  2).  This 
is,  no  doubt,  in  order  to  reward  and  punish  men  according  to 
their  deserts  in  the  ordinary  course  of  providence.  But,  as 
we  have  seen,  this  ordinary  course  of  providence  leaves  much 
to  be  desired.  In  the  near  future  there  will  be  a  judgment 
in  which  the  apparent  wrongs  of  the  present  system  will  be 
remedied.  God  will  ascend  the  throne  and  judge  the  peo- 
ples (7  :  If.).  In  that  judgment  sinners  shall  not  abide,  nor 
evil  men  in  the  assembly  of  the  righteous  (1:5).  The  throne 
of  wickedness,  that  is,  evil-minded  kings,  cannot  stand  in 
that  presence  (94  : 20).  The  judgment  will  reach  the 
heavenly  powers,  that  is,  the  angels  who  have  been  appointed 
to  conduct  the  affairs  of  men  and  who  have  not  carried  out 
the  will  of  Yahweh:  "Yahweh  stands  in  the  heavenly  as- 
sembly; he  judges  in  the  midst  of  the  gods"  (82  : 1).  Hence 
the  frequent  praise  of  Yahweh  because  he  is  coming  to  judge 
the  earth:  "He  will  judge  the  world  with  righteousness 
and  the  nations  according  to  his  truth"  (96  :  13).  That  the 
judgment  was  actually  in  process  was  assumed  when  victory 
crowned  the  Jewish  arms.  Israel  congratulates  herself  that 
Yahweh  has  already  subjected  the  nations  to  her:  "Thou 
didst  save  me  from  the  strife  of  peoples,  didst  set  me  as  chief 
over  the  nations;  people  that  I  knew  not  were  subject  to  me" 
(18  :  44).  What  seem  to  us  the  insignificant  successes  of  the 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  329 

Maccabean  period  were  taken  as  earnest  of  the  good  time 
coming,  when  Israel  was  to  become  chief  of  the  nations  of 
the  earth. 

In  the  general  sense,  then,  of  hoping  for  the  kingdom  of 
God  the  Psalmists  are  inspired  by  the  Messianic  faith.  Did 
they  also  look  for  a  personal  Messiah,  a  king  of  David's  line? 
The  Psalm  just  quoted  ends  by  describing  Yahweh  as  the 
one  who  shows  favour  to  his  anointed,  to  David  and  his  seed 
forever  (18  :  51).  The  rest  of  the  Psalm,  as  we  have  seen, 
expresses  the  faith  of  the  pious  community,  and  this  makes 
it  probable  that  the  mention  of  David  and  his  seed  is  to  be 
interpreted  in  favour  of  the  restoration  of  the  dynasty,  but 
not  as  laying  any  emphasis  upon  an  individual  as  the  future 
king.  The  covenant  with  David,  which  is  rehearsed  in  an- 
other Psalm,  is  introduced  simply  to  give  force  to  the  impas- 
sioned protest  that  Yahweh  has  not  favoured  his  people  as 
they  had  a  right  to  expect  (89).  Even  here  the  anointed 
one  is  not  an  individual  but  the  people  (89  :  51).  In  other 
passages  also  the  anointed  (the  word  is  the  same  that  we 
translate  Messiah)  designates  the  people  rather  than  an  in- 
dividual (28  :  8  and  probably  84  :  10). 

The  passages  traditionally  interpreted  as  Messianic,  there- 
fore, must  be  viewed  with  some  reserve.  But  there  are  allu- 
sions to  a  king  which  may  have  been  intended  to  apply  to 
the  ideal  king,  that  is,  the  Messiah.  The  best  known  is  the 
prayer  for  the  king  (72),  the  language  of  which  seems  to 
transcend  what  might  be  said  of  an  ordinary  ruler.  The 
declaration  in  another  Psalm,  however,  that  the  king  is  both 
king  and  priest  (though  not  of  the  order  of  Aaron)  must  be 
interpreted  of  one  of  the  Maccabean  princes  (110).  The 
vivid  description  of  the  nations  plotting  against  Yahweh  and 
his  anointed  (2)  refers  to  some  actual  event,  no  longer  clear 
to  us.  But  the  king  whom  Yahweh  is  here  affirmed  to  have 
set  on  Zion,  his  sacred  hill,  is  apparently  the  people.  The 
conclusion  from  an  examination  of  these  passages  is  that 
while  the  figure  of  the  Davidic  king  was  present  to  the  minds 
of  some  of  these  writers,  he  was  not  the  most  prominent 


330  THE   RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

object  of  their  hope.  The  coming  kingdom  of  God,  that  is, 
the  personal  reign  of  Yahweh,  was  the  object  of  their  hope. 
Already  to  the  eye  of  faith,  this  kingship  is  realising  itself: 
"Thy  foes,  O  Yahweh,  are  perishing,  and  all  evil-doers  are 
scattered"  (92  :  10).  Yahweh  has  assumed  the  sovereignty; 
he  has  clothed  himself  with  majesty  (93  : 1).  God  has 
taken  his  seat  on  his  holy  throne;  men  of  their  own  free  will 
from  among  the  gentiles  have  joined  the  people  of  Abra- 
ham's God;  for  to  God,  our  shield,  belongs  the  world;  he  is 
exalted  on  high  (47  :  9/.).  If  called  forth  by  the  Macca- 
bean  victories  these  expressions  are  nevertheless  evidence 
of  a  strong  religious  faith,  which  looked  for  the  coming  of 
a  universal  kingdom,  in  which  all  nations  will  recognise  the 
sovereignty  of  Yahweh,  when  "All  the  nations  whom  thou 
hast  made  shall  come  and  fall  down  before  thee,  O  Lord,  and 
glorify  thy  name"  (86  :  9).  How  far  this  means  the  genuine 
conversion  of  the  nations  to  the  religion  of  Israel  is  not  clear, 
but  it  doubtless  prepared  the  way  for  distinct  missionary 
activity.  When  one  writer  declares  his  readiness  to  teach 
sinners  the  way  of  God  (51  :  14),  and  another  affirms  that  he 
has  not  withheld  the  knowledge  of  Yahweh's  faithfulness 
from  the  great  congregation  (40  :  10),  the  reference  is  only  to 
the  instruction  of  careless  Israelites. 

One  subject  of  subordinate  importance  may  here  be 
touched  upon.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  angels.  We  have  seen 
how  prominent  in  the  thought  of  this  age  were  these  media- 
tors between  God  and  man.  It  is  rather  surprising,  there- 
fore, to  find  them  so  rarely  mentioned  in  the  Psalter.  The 
explanation  is  that  for  the  most  part  the  Psalms  were  not 
the  work  of  the  writers  to  whom  we  owe  the  apocalypses. 
That  the  Psalmists  are  not  hostile  to  the  doctrine  of  angels 
is  proved,  however,  by  a  number  of  references.  In  one  in- 
stance the  sons  of  God  are  called  upon  to  praise  Yahweh — a 
reminiscence  of  the  phrase  in  Genesis  which  in  this  period 
was  understood  of  the  angels  (29  :  1).  Another  passage  de- 
clares that  the  angel  of  Yahweh  camps  round  about  those 
who  fear  Yahweh  and  rescues  them  (34  :  8).  More  explicit  is 


THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE  331 

the  promise  to  the  one  who  abides  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Almighty :  "  He  shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee  to  keep 
thee  in  all  thy  ways;  they  shall  bear  thee  up  in  their  hands 
lest  thou  dash  thy  foot  against  a  stone"  (91  :  ll/.).  One 
notable  Psalm  takes  the  position  of  Daniel,  that  the  heavenly 
powers  appointed  to  administer  affairs  among  men  have  been 
unfaithful  to  their  trust  and  will  be  brought  into  judgment: 
"In  the  heavenly  assembly  Yahweh  stands  forth  and  the 
gods  there  he  arraigns:  How  long  will  you  judge  unjustly, 
and  respect  the  person  of  the  wicked? "  (82  :  1  /.)  There 
is  here  a  dim  remembrance  that  these  angelic  shepherds  (to 
use  Enoch's  term)  are  the  old  gods  of  the  heathen  once  in- 
trusted by  Yahweh  with  the  administration  of  affairs  over 
the  nations.  Now  they  are  to  die  like  men.  Their  destruc- 
tion is,  in  fact,  necessary  to  Yahweh's  complete  supremacy 
over  the  universe. 

The  significance  of  the  Psalms  is  certainly  not  to  be  found 
in  any  doctrine  of  angels.  Their  significance  is  to  be  found 
in  their  clear  attestation  of  the  life  of  faith,  lived  in  unpro- 
pitious  surroundings  and  under  a  rigid  legalism  such  as  is 
often  thought  to  stifle  the  life  of  the  spirit.  The  true  state 
of  the  case  seems  to  be  that  the  loyal  soul  delights  in  obedi- 
ence to  a  law,  however  complicated,  so  long  as  that  soul  re- 
tains the  faith  that  the  law  is  the  will  of  its  God.  The 
prophetic  aphorism,  "To  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and 
to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams,"  finds  here  its  living  illustra- 
tion. The  Psalmists  identify  the  righteous  with  those  who 
obey  the  Law.  But  these  are  also  the  ones  who  wait  in  hope 
for  the  fuller  revelation  of  Yahweh.  Often  in  suffering,  op- 
pressed by  the  proud  who  do  not  fear  God  or  who  virtually 
deny  his  existence,  they  yet  hold  fast  to  their  faith.  This  is 
attested  by  their  songs  of  rejoicing  and  also  by  their  utter- 
ances in  time  of  trouble.  Prayer  is  becoming  more  impor- 
tant than  ritual  service,  and  these  believers  are  unconsciously 
preparing  the  way  for  the  time  when  they  that  worship  the 
Father  shall  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  FINAL  STAGE 

WE  have  now  traced  the  religion  of  Israel  to  the  latest 
period  of  the  national  existence,  and  we  may  attempt  to  pic- 
ture it  in  its  final  stage.  We  see  a  community  scattered 
throughout  the  world,  everywhere  in  contact  with  foreigners 
and  susceptible  of  foreign  influence,  yet  retaining  its  sepa- 
rateness  and  conscious  that  the  true  fatherland  is  not  the  one 
in  which  its  members  sojourn.  What  gave  these  people  unity 
was  not  primarily  their  purity  of  blood,  though  this  was  one 
of  the  things  on  which  they  prided  themselves,  but  the  con- 
viction that  they  were  the  people  of  Yahweh.  And  the  sense 
of  superiority  which  they  undoubtedly  felt  was  based  on  the 
conviction  that  their  God  was  the  one  true  God.  Contrast- 
ing their  comparatively  pure  idea  of  him  with  the  crass 
idolatry  which  was  everywhere  in  evidence  around  them, 
they  had  a  certain  right  to  assume  this  attitude  so  galling 
to  their  neighbours.  More  to  their  prejudice  was  the  tenacity 
with  which  they  held  to  the  observance  of  their  Law.  Sep- 
aratism was  ingrained  in  the  legal  system,  and  such  an  ex- 
ample of  it  as  their  refusal  to  eat  with  their  gentile  neigh- 
bours naturally  brought  upon  them  the  reputation  of  being 
unsocial  and  surly. 

Anti-Semitism,  therefore,  is  not  a  recent  development,  and 
it  was  probably  accentuated  by  the  Messianic  hope.  The 
Jews  did  not  conceal  their  expectation  that  the  time  would 
come  when  Yahweh  would  put  an  end  to  the  domination  of 
the  heathen  and  establish  the  elect  people  in  the  place  of 
supremacy.  All  Jews  were  united  in  these,  which  may  be 
called  the  common  features  of  Judaism — the  belief  in  Yah- 
weh as  the  one  God,  observance  of  the  Mosaic  Law,  and 

332 


THE   FINAL  STAGE  333 

expectation  of  the  Messianic  time.  But  there  is  plenty  of 
evidence  that  with  this  unity  there  was  also  striking  di- 
versity of  view.  The  attempt  to  observe  a  complicated 
system  of  rules  is  divisive  rather  than  unifying.  Casuistry 
is  capable  of  indefinite  development,  and  the  constantly  in- 
creasing volume  of  tradition  as  to  what  is  allowed  and  what 
is  forbidden  gives  room  for  endless  debate  which  culminates 
in  hatred  of  one  party  by  the  others,  if  not  in  actual  pro- 
scription and  schism.  The  New  Testament  shows  with 
sufficient  clearness  that  the  two  parties  of  Sadducees  and 
Pharisees  hated  each  other  as  bitterly  as  either  one  hated 
the  gentiles.  Of  the  two  it  seems  evident  that  the  Pharisees 
held  to  the  more  developed  tradition  afterward  embodied  in 
the  Talmud,  while  the  Sadducees,  equally  strict  in  observ- 
ing the  letter  of  the  Law,  rejected  beliefs  and  practices 
which  were  supererogatory.  Their  political  differences  do 
not  concern  us.  But  we  may  notice  that  both  parties,  to 
all  appearance,  looked  down  upon  the  common  people  (the 
people  of  the  land)  because  they  did  not  keep  the  many 
precepts  contained  in  the  written  and  oral  Law.  Moreover, 
there  was  a  separate  sect  called  the  Essenes,  the  members 
of  which,  if  we  may  trust  the  documents  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  regarded  themselves  as  the  true  Israel,  and 
whose  observance  (apparently  influenced  by  asceticism  from 
the  farther  east)  was  more  rigorous  than  that  of  either  of  the 
other  sects.  Recently  discovered  documents  seem  to  show 
that  still  another  sect  had  settled  in  the  vicinity  of  Damascus, 
with  the  intention  of  constituting  themselves  the  true  king- 
dom of  God  by  observance  of  the  Law  in  their  own  inter- 
pretation of  it.  At  an  earlier  date  the  community  of 
Samaritans,  Jews  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  had  been  ex- 
scinded by  the  Jerusalem  Jews. 

All  these  sects  were  located  in  Syria.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  larger  part  of  the  race  was  settled  outside  of  Pales- 
tine, the  most  flourishing  communities  being  in  the  great 
cities  of  the  Greek-speaking  world.  That  these  could  not 
escape  the  influence  of  Greek  culture  we  have  already  no- 


334  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

ticed.  They  were,  in  fact,  broader  than  their  coreligionists 
who  spoke  Aramaic.  In  some  cases  they  seem  to  have  recog- 
nised that  the  God  whom  the  gentiles  worship  is  the  same 
known  to  them  as  Yahweh.  The  letter  of  Aristeas  declares 
that  the  Jews  worship  the  same  divinity  with  the  Greeks 
(Ep.  Arist.  16),  though  this  may  be  a  concession  made  to  con- 
ciliate the  Greek  readers,  for  whom,  apparently,  the  letter 
was  composed.  The  claim  urged  by  some  Jews  that  all  the 
good  found  in  Plato  was  borrowed  from  Moses  is  a  concession 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  religion  of  the  great  philosopher. 
But  the  Jew,  conscious  of  the  superiority  of  his  own  faith, 
probably  held  in  reserve  the  thought  that  the  gentiles  had 
corrupted  the  original  revelation. 

Characteristic  of  the  period  is  the  tendency  to  secure 
recognition  of  Judaism  as  the  true  religion  by  alleged  conces- 
sions from  the  gentiles  themselves.  We  have  seen  how  the 
book  of  Daniel  makes  Nebuchadrezzar  confess  the  unique- 
ness of  the  Most  High  in  terms  that  only  a  Jew  could  use. 
The  author  of  the  book  of  Ezra  makes  Cyrus  acknowledge 
Yahweh  God  of  heaven  as  the  one  from  whom  he  had  received 
all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  (Ezra  1:2),  and  embodies  in  his 
book  a  decree  of  Artaxerxes  which  enjoins  that  the  temple 
worship  be  worthily  sustained  in  order  that  wrath  from 
heaven  may  not  break  out  on  the  empire  (7  :  23).  Of  a 
piece  with  these  alleged  documents  is  the  letter  of  Anti- 
ochus,  the  arch-enemy  of  the  Jews,  in  which  he  seeks  to 
win  their  favour  and  vows  to  restore  and  purify  the  temple 
(II  Mac.  9  :  19-27).  The  Greek  Esther  gives  us  a  decree 
of  Artaxerxes  in  which  he  calls  the  Jews  Sons  of  the  Most 
High  (Gr.  Esth.  5  :  16). 

The  sufficient  explanation  for  these  insertions  is  the  tra- 
dition which  grew  up  that  gentile  kings  had  been  miracu- 
lously induced  to  recognise  the  one  God  and  to  show  favour 
to  his  servants  and  to  his  temple.  The  Jews,  living  in  the 
midst  of  unsympathetic  and  often  hostile  neighbours,  were 
dependent  on  the  favour  of  the  civil  ruler.  It  was  necessary 
to  assume  an  attitude  of  conciliation  toward  their  de  facto 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  335 

governors.  One  writer  in  this  age  asserts  that  rebellion 
against  the  gentile  monarch  is  disobedience  to  God  (Baruch 
2  : 21-24).  The  supposititious  letter  of  the  exiles  in  Baby- 
lon to  the  high  priest  in  Jerusalem  exhorts  him  to  pray 
and  sacrifice  on  behalf  of  Nebuchadrezzar:  "That  we  may 
live  under  the  protection  of  Nebuchadrezzar  and  of  Bel- 
shazzar  his  son,  serve  them  many  days  and  find  grace  in  their 
sight"  (Baruch  1 : 10-12).  Nicanor  is  shown  the  burnt  offer- 
ing that  is  made  for  the  king  of  Syria  (I  Mac.  7 : 33),  and 
Eleazar  the  high  priest  assures  Ptolemy  that  he  offers  sac- 
rifices on  his  behalf  and  prays  for  him  and  the  security  of  his 
kingdom  (Ep.  Arist.  45).  Similarly,  the  Jewish  high  priest 
and  Council  assure  the  Spartans  that  they  remember  them 
in  their  prayers  and  offerings  (I  Mac.  12  : 11).  With  evi- 
dent pride  the  writers  of  this  period  recount  the  presents 
made  to  the  temple  by  foreign  monarchs  as  so  many  tributes 
to  the  power  of  their  God  (Ep.  Arist.  51/.). 

Conscious  of  gentile  contempt,  and  resenting  it,  the  Jews 
also  comforted  themselves  by  stories  of  wonderful  deliver- 
ances wrought  on  their  behalf  by  their  God.  The  one  most 
familiar  to  us  is,  of  course,  the  one  which  has  found  its  way 
into  the  canon  under  the  name  of  the  heroine,  Esther.  The 
intensity  of  hatred  with  which  the  heathen  are  regarded  does 
not  prevent  the  author  from  making  the  Jewess  an  inmate  of 
the  royal  harem.  How  intense  the  feeling  is  is  made  evident 
near  the  end  of  the  book :  "  The  Jews  smote  all  their  enemies 
with  the  stroke  of  the  sword,  and  with  slaughter  and  destruc- 
tion, and  did  what  they  would  to  them  that  hated  them" 
(Esth.  9:5);  and  we  learn  that  the  number  of  enemies  thus 
destroyed  was  seventy-five  thousand.  Justification  is  found 
in  the  unreasonableness  of  Hainan's  persecution — because 
Mordecai  would  not  prostrate  himself  before  him,  the  prime 
minister  plots  the  destruction  of  the  whole  Jewish  people. 
That  there  is  no  historic  basis  for  the  story  seems  evident. 

Even  more  extravagant  in  its  details  is  the  story  known 
as  Third  Maccabees.  According  to  this,  Ptolemy  Philo- 
pator  desecrates  the  temple  by  entering  the  Most  Sacred 


336  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

apartment,  and  for  this  he  is  punished  by  an  act  of  God. 
Full  of  wrath,  he  orders  all  the  Jews  in  his  realm  to  be  gath- 
ered in  the  amphitheatre  at  Alexandria,  there  to  be  trampled 
to  death  by  the  war  elephants.  On  three  successive  days 
the  threatened  fate  is  averted,  and  at  the  final  attempt  two 
angels  appear  and  save  the  Jews.  The  king  is  convinced  of 
his  error,  and  not  only  releases  the  Jews  but  issues  a  decree 
that  those  who  wish  to  return  to  Palestine  may  do  so.  As 
in  the  book  of  Esther,  the  Jews  are  given  permission  to  slay 
their  enemies,  and  these  are  defined  as  the  renegades  of  their 
own  race.  As  in  the  case  of  Esther,  it  is  vain  to  search  for 
an  actual  event  underlying  this  story.  And  the  same  must 
be  said  of  the  book  of  Judith,  another  monument  of  Jewish 
ferocity.  What  the  Jews  would  have  done  had  they  had  the 
power  is  revealed  by  these  books  and  by  the  method  of  Judas 
Maccabeus,  who  slew  all  the  males  in  the  cities  he  conquered, 
for  which,  to  be  sure,  he  was  able  to  urge  Old  Testament  prec- 
edent (I  Mac.  5  :  35),  and  by  Jonathan's  burning  of  the 
temple  at  Ashdod  with  all  that  had  taken  refuge  there 
(10  :  83/.). 

These  books  are  not  intended  primarily  to  utter  hatred, 
but  to  encourage  believers  by  recounting  the  wonderful  in- 
tervention of  Providence  in  their  behalf.  They  belong, 
therefore,  with  the  anecdotes  of  Daniel  and  his  friends. 
The  appetite  for  the  marvellous  is,  however,  not  easily  satis- 
fied, as  we  see  when  comparing  the  second  book  of  Macca- 
bees with  the  first  of  the  same  name.  The  two  are  concerned 
with  the  same  period,  but  the  sober  narrative  of  the  first  book 
contrasts  strangely  with  the  fantasies  of  the  second.  In  the 
latter  signs  and  portents  abound,  angelic  warriors  strike 
down  intruders  into  the  temple,  lead  the  Jewish  armies  to 
battle,  or  take  Judas  between  them  and  protect  him  in  the 
thickest  of  the  fight.  The  first  book  knows  nothing  of  these 
supernatural  events,  and  we  are  compelled  to  see  in  them 
the  product  of  the  religious  imagination  attempting  to  edify 
believers  by  instances  of  direct  divine  intervention  on  behalf 
of  Israel. 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  337 

The  difficulties  of  the  Jews  in  the  dispersion  arose  from 
the  fact  that  they  were  forced  into  contact  with  heathen 
customs.  In  Greek  and  Roman  communities  the  public  build- 
ings, the  squares,  and  the  markets  were  under  the  patron- 
age of  heathen  divinities,  whose  very  sight  was  an  abomina- 
tion to  the  faithful  Jew.  Hence  arose  the  desire  on  the  part 
of  the  Jews  that  the  places  of  their  sojourn  might  be  cleansed 
from  these  defilements.  Moreover,  acquaintance  with  the 
more  thoughtful  of  the  gentiles  led  many  to  desire  that  these 
neighbours  might  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Israel's  God.  In 
contrast  with  the  state  of  mind  which  we  find  at  a  later  date 
and  which  discouraged  proselytism,  we  discover  in  this  period 
a  distinct  missionary  activity.  The  Gospels  intimate  that 
this  was  not  altogether  unselfish,  and  we  may  readily  grant 
that  the  conversion  of  gentile  princes,  of  which  we  have 
mention  in  this  period,  was  not  prompted  by  purely  religious 
zeal.  But  when  the  intensely  national,  not  to  say  fanatical, 
book  of  Judith  approves  the  reception  of  Achior,  an  Ammon- 
ite, into  the  household  of  faith  (Judith  14: 10),  we  must  sup- 
pose a  genuine  interest  in  the  conversion  of  the  gentiles. 
The  reaction  first  shows  itself  in  the  Psalms  of  Solomon 
which  assert  that  in  the  Messianic  time  there  will  be  no 
proselyte  or  stranger  in  the  community  (Ps.  Sol.  17  :  28). l 

Only  on  the  theory  of  a  wide-spread  desire  to  interest  the 
gentiles  in  the  Jewish  religion  and  so  to  secure  their  respect, 
if  not  their  adherence,  can  we  account  for  the  considerable 
body  of  literature  in  this  period  which  puts  Jewish  ideas  into 
the  mouth  of  Greeks.  A  notable  example  is  the  letter  of 
Aristeas  already  mentioned.  The  letter  purports  to  be 
written  by  a  Greek  officer  at  the  court  of  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus.  The  alleged  author,  Aristeas,  writes  to  his  brother 
as  one  interested  in  the  good  morals  and  temper  of  those  who 
observe  the  Jewish  Law.  Not  only  are  these  men  rational 
and  cultivated  persons,  but  the  Law  which  they  observe  is  one 
of  the  important  literary  monuments  of  mankind.  This  is 

1  On  the  attitude  of  the  Talmud,  see  Bousset,  Religion  des  Judentums, 
p.  269. 


338  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

shown  by  making  Ptolemy  (the  founder  of  the  great  Alexan- 
drian Library)  take  special  pains  to  secure  a  copy  of  it  for 
his  collection;  not  only  to  secure  a  copy  but  to  have  it  trans- 
lated into  Greek.  The  narrative  tells  us  how  the  king  sends 
an  embassy  to  Jerusalem  (Aristeas  represents  himself  to  be  a 
member  of  this  embassy),  requesting  the  high  priest  to  send 
a  copy  of  the  Law  and  also  a  band  of  competent  translators. 
The  visit  to  Jerusalem  is  described,  and  the  glory  of  the  tem- 
ple is  enlarged  upon.  Evidently  the  reader  is  expected  to 
form  a  favourable  idea  both  of  the  religion  of  the  Jews  and  of 
the  Law  which  they  observe.  Ptolemy  is  made  to  recognise 
the  Law  as  something  divine,  bowing  before  the  parchments 
as  sacred  and  venerable,  containing  as  they  do  the  oracles 
of  God.  In  accordance  with  the  excellence  of  the  Law  is 
the  virtue  of  those  who  obey  it.  They  are  moved  by  a  high 
religious  sense  of  accountability  to  the  one  God.  And  the 
Law  itself  is  not  the  irrational  thing  which  some  of  the 
Greeks  think  it  to  be.  Even  those  commands  which  seem 
strange  have  in  them  the  highest  wisdom.  Thus  the  pro- 
hibition of  birds  of  prey  for  food  is  intended  to  teach  us  that 
we  should  not  oppress  our  fellow  men.  Animals  which  divide 
the  hoof  are  allowed,  in  order  to  show  that  we  should  exercise 
wise  discrimination,  and  these  permitted  animals  are  rumi- 
nants, to  impress  upon  us  the  value  of  reflection.  At  the 
court  of  Ptolemy  the  Jewish  teachers  shine  as  embodiments 
of  the  wisdom  which  must  belong  to  the  observers  of  such  a 
divine  Law. 

It  has  long  been  recognised  that  this  account  of  the 
translation  of  the  Pentateuch  into  Greek  has  no  basis  in 
fact.  The  existence  of  the  translation,  however,  at  some 
time  before  the  Christian  era  is  something  of  prime  impor- 
tance. It  testifies  to  the  extent  to  which  the  large  Jewish 
community  in  Alexandria  was  Hellenised.  The  translation 
must  have  been  made  for  the  Jews  themselves,  and  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  efforts  of  Aristeas  made  any  impression 
on  gentiles.  The  Hebraisms  of  the  Greek  Bible  would  repel 
the  foreigner.  The  continued  existence  of  the  Jewish  dis- 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  339 

persion,  however,  would  be  almost  unthinkable  without  this 
version  of  the  Scriptures,  and  its  importance  for  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church  is  well  known.  Its  origin  is  wholly 
obscure,  and  as  to  the  date  at  which  it  was  made  all  that  we 
can  say  is  that  it  was  in  existence  some  time  before  the  trans- 
lator of  Ecclesiasticus  came  to  Egypt  in  the  year  131  B.  C. 

A  more  daring  attempt  to  impress  the  gentile  world  was 
made  in  the  so-called  Sibylline  books.  Traditions  of  divinely 
inspired  prophetesses  must  have  been  wide-spread  in  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world.  Books  ascribed  to  such  prophet- 
esses had  official  recognition  at  Rome,  and  when  the  alleged 
Tarquinian  codices  were  destroyed  in  the  year  83  B.  C.  the 
Senate  had  no  difficulty  in  gathering  other  oracles  to  replace 
them.  This  implies  that  a  considerable  body  of  literature 
circulated  under  the  name  of  one  Sibyl  or  another.  The 
Jews  saw  no  reason  why  these  venerable  characters  should 
not  find  a  place  in  their  own  tradition.  They  therefore 
made  the  Sibyl  the  daughter  of  Noah,  and  in  the  book  at- 
tributed to  her  she  foresees  the  whole  course  of  history — a 
device  with  which  we  are  already  familiar  in  the  apocalypses. 
The  mixture  of  Hebrew  tradition  and  Greek  legend  is  crassly 
made — the  Greek  gods  Kronos,  lapetos,  and  Titanos  being 
identified  with  the  three  sons  of  Noah  (Or.  Sib.  Ill,  110-116). 
The  date  of  the  composition  is  indicated  by  the  supposititious 
prediction  of  Rome's  rule  over  Egypt  (III,  46).  The  author 
expects  a  judgment  in  the  near  future,  and  this  is  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  coming  of  the  Messiah:  "The  sacred  ruler  who 
will  wield  the  sceptre  over  the  whole  world  for  all  ages"  (46- 
50).  The  judgment  will  be  one  of  wrath  for  Latin  men,  with 
fire  and  brimstone.  It  will  be  introduced  by  Beliar,  who  will 
lead  men  astray  by  his  lying  wonders.  "Then  the  God  who 
dwells  in  the  ether  will  roll  up  the  heavens  as  a  scroll,  the 
vault  above  will  fall  to  the  earth,  and  a  stream  of  fire  will 
consume  earth  and  sea"  (63-85). 

The  difference  between  these  lucubrations  and  the  apoc- 
alypses which  we  have  considered  is  that  the  apocalypses 
are  intended  to  encourage  the  Jews  in  time  of  oppression;  the 


340  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Sibylline  verses  are  intended  to  impress  gentile  readers  by 
denouncing  woes  upon  them,  and  to  convince  them  of  the 
happier  lot  of  Israel.  When  the  consummation  comes  the 
sons  of  the  great  God  will  dwell  in  peace  around  the  temple, 
rejoicing  in  that  which  the  Creator  and  just  Ruler  will  give 
them  (702/.):  "For  he  himself  will  protect  them  like  a 
wall  of  fire.  Then  all  the  nations  will  come  to  the  seat  of 
the  divine  majesty,  confessing  the  error  of  their  idolatry. 
The  king  who  is  to  come  will  appear  from  heaven  (or  from 
the  East),  will  follow  the  counsels  of  God,  will  judge  every 
one  with  blood  and  fire,  and  will  adorn  the  temple,  or  even 
rebuild  it." 

The  reason  for  the  happier  lot  of  the  Jews  is  their  superior 
righteousness,  and  this  is  set  forth  at  length.  These  are  the 
worshippers  of  the  one  God,  who  is  contrasted  with  the 
demons  whom  the  gentiles  revere  (cf.  Procemium).  They  pay 
no  attention  to  oracles  or  signs,  necromancy  or  magic :  "  But 
they  reflect  on  righteousness  and  virtue,  and  there  is  not 
among  them  covetousness  which  begets  a  thousand  evils 
among  mortals  and  endless  war  and  famine.  They  have  just 
measures  in  country  and  city;  they  steal  not  nor  do  they  drive 
away  flocks  and  herds;  neither  does  one  remove  the  land- 
marks of  his  neighbor,  nor  does  the  rich  man  oppress  the 
poor.  He  does  not  oppress  the  widow,  but  rather  helps  her 
and  supports  her  with  corn  and  wine  and  oil;  he  who  has 
possessions  sends  a  part  of  his  harvest  to  those  who  live  in 
want,  fulfilling  the  word  of  the  great  God"  (218-245).  Be- 
cause of  this  superiority  in  the  moral  life,  and  because  of  their 
monotheism,  the  people  of  the  great  God  will  be  the  guides 
to  life  for  all  mortals  (194).  The  gentiles  are,  therefore,  ex- 
horted to  give  up  their  sins,  to  bathe  in  running  water,  to 
pray  for  forgiveness  for  the  sins  of  the  past,  atoning  with 
praises  for  the  bitter  godlessness.  Then  will  God  repent 
and  not  destroy  them;  he  will  leave  off  his  wrath  if  they 
practise  honourable  piety  in  spirit.  Otherwise  the  judgment 
must  come  and  annihilate  the  whole  race  of  men  (IV,  161- 
190). 


THE   FINAL  STAGE  341 

Such  works  as  these  may  have  had  some  influence  upon 
Greek  readers,  but  their  chief  power  was  shown  later  when 
they  had  considerable  vogue  in  the  Christian  Church.  Of  a 
different  stamp  is  the  book  called  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  to 
which  we  have  given  some  attention  in  an  earlier  chapter. 
It  differs  from  the  other  Wisdom  books  by  its  distinctly  Hel- 
lenistic tone,  having  been  written  in  Greek  for  the  benefit  of 
Greek-speaking  Jews.  Its  assertion  of  the  superiority  of  the 
religion  of  the  Jews  as  compared  with  the  idolatry  of  the 
other  nations  is  in  line  with  what  we  have  already  read.  An 
attempt  is  made  to  account  for  the  origin  of  idolatry  by  the 
hypothesis  that  statues  of  deceased  relatives  were  the  first 
recipients  of  this  sort  of  homage  (Wisdom  14  :  15/.).  Where 
the  author  differs  from  his  predecessors  is  in  affirming  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  apart  from  the  body.  This  is  evi- 
dently due  to  Greek  influence.  At  the  same  time  he  is 
a  loyal  Jew,  and  believes  in  the  observance  of  the  Law, 
as  is  evident  from  his  treatment  of  the  subject  of  inter- 
marriage (3  :  13;  4  :  6).  In  connection  with  this  book 
we  may  notice  another  work  which  attempts  to  clothe 
Hebrew  religion  in  a  Greek  garb  and  so  commend  it  to 
gentile  readers.  This  is  the  fourth  book  of  Maccabees, 
a  sermon  such  as  may  have  been  delivered  in  the  great  syn- 
agogue at  Alexandria.  It  takes  as  its  text  an  anecdote  con- 
tained in  the  second  book  of  Maccabees,  the  martyrdom  of  a 
mother  and  her  seven  sons  in  the  days  of  Antiochus  IV.  The 
lesson  which  is  taught  is  that  Jewish  piety  is  sufficient  to  sus- 
tain the  believer  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  danger  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  acute  suffering.  The  most  interesting 
thing  is  that  the  lesson  is  put  in  Greek  form,  being  stated 
thus:  "The  reason  is  ruler  of  the  passions."  This  is  the  true 
wisdom  or,  as  the  author  states  it,  the  true  philosophy.  This 
philosophy  he  thinks  is  obtained  by  the  Law.  If  he  had 
gentile  readers  it  must  have  seemed  a  curious  non  sequitur 
when  he  goes  on  to  commend  the  avoidance  of  forbidden 
meats  as  a  conspicuous  instance  of  the  rule  of  reason. 

The  most  striking  example  of  Hellenistic  Judaism  is  Philo, 


342  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

a  member  of  the  Jewish  community  at  Alexandria,  and  a 
man  thoroughly  acquainted  with  Greek  thought.  That  he 
is  a  loyal  Jew  is  seen  by  his  attitude  toward  the  Pentateuch, 
which  he  regards  as  the  perfect  revelation  of  divine  wisdom. 
Everything  in  these  books  is  an  oracle  of  God,  and  no  word 
is  without  its  significance.  Moses  is  the  great  master  from 
whom  the  gentile  philosophers  have  learned.  To  prove 
that  the  Law  is  the  law  of  reason  he  wrote  an  extended  series 
of  treatises,  hoping  thus,  apparently,  to  bring  reflecting  and 
intelligent  gentiles  to  accept  the  Law  and  obey  it.  As  he 
has  left  on  record  evidence  of  the  acute  hatred  felt  by  some 
of  the  gentiles  toward  the  Jews,  it  is  probable  that  he  desires 
also  to  show  how  baseless  are  the  attacks  made  upon  his 
people  and  their  religion.  This  he  does  by  affirming  the 
ethical  value  of  the  Law  and  also  by  insisting  that  it  is 
identical  with  the  law  of  nature:  The  Law  begins  with  the 
account  of  Creation  to  indicate  that  the  world  and  the  Tora 
are  in  harmony  and  that  the  observer  of  the  Tora  is  a  citi- 
zen of  the  world,  since  he  regulates  his  actions  by  the  will 
of  nature  by  which  the  whole  world  is  guided. 

The  difficulties  which  the  expositor  must  encounter  in  prov- 
ing such  a  thesis  are  met  by  the  allegorical  method  already  in 
vogue  among  Jews  and  gentiles.  The  book  of  Daniel  opened 
the  way  by  treating  the  seventy  years  of  Jeremiah  as  some- 
thing other  than  seventy  literal  years.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, that  Philo  was  influenced  here  as  elsewhere  by  Greek 
precedent,  for  we  know  that  Homer  was  already  allegorised 
by  some  of  his  commentators.  The  thoroughness  with  which 
Philo  has  learned  his  lesson  is  seen  from  his  treatment  of  the 
Pentateuch.  To  him  the  history  of  mankind  contained  in 
Genesis  is  only  a  picturesque  psychology  and  ethic.  It  may 
be  too  much  to  say  that  the  history,  as  history,  had  no  impor- 
tance to  him,  but  the  historical  content  of  the  book  is  wholly 
subordinate.  The  patriarchs,  for  example,  symbolise  the 
various  states  of  the  soul — Abraham  and  Lot  are  the  two  ten- 
dencies of  man,  one  striving  after  virtue,  the  other  after  sen- 
sual enjoyment.  Abraham  sends  Lot  away;  so  the  soul  frees 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  343 

itself  from  the  lower  desires  and  appetites  and  gives  virtue 
the  first  place.  The  word  of  God  to  Abraham:  "Know  that 
thy  seed  shall  be  strangers  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,"  means 
that  the  love  of  virtue  dwells  in  the  body,  not  as  its  home, 
but  that  it  should  regard  itself  as  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land. 
The  sacrifices  commanded  by  the  Law,  although  obligatory 
on  the  believer,  are  not  of  value  for  their  own  sake;  they  are 
symbols  of  the  state  of  the  soul  in  repentance,  when  it  frees 
itself  from  sin  and  is  thus  rendered  acceptable  to  God. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Philo  himself  was  a  loyal  and  con- 
scientious observer  of  the  Law,  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  his- 
tory of  Jewish  religion  should  take  further  account  of  him. 
His  philosophy  was  not  that  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  but 
was  the  Platonic  dualism,  putting  soul  and  body  into  sharp 
opposition,  positing  also  a  great  gulf  between  God  and  his 
creation,  a  gulf  that  can  be  crossed  only  by  the  mediating  Lo- 
gos which  was  already  a  figure  of  Greek  speculation.  Philo, 
in  fact,  belongs  at  the  beginning  of  Christian  thought  rather 
than  at  the  end  of  Jewish,  for  his  influence  on  Christian  the- 
ology and  on  Christian  exegesis  is  marked  and  may  be  said 
to  have  endured  to  the  present  day.  We  can  hardly  doubt 
that  his  emphasis  of  the  allegorical  meaning  of  the  Law 
helped  to  undermine  its  force  as  law.  If,  in  fact,  the  im- 
portant thing  was  the  allegory,  why  not  keep  the  allegory 
and  let  the  literal  meaning  go?  Christianity  answered  by 
rejecting  the  Law  as  a  system  of  rules  while  retaining  it  as 
a  divine  revelation.  And  though  we  cannot  say  that  the 
allegorical  interpretation  was  rejected  by  the  Jews  who  re- 
tained the  Law  as  a  rule  of  life,  no  doubt  there  was  a  sharp 
reaction  against  Hellenism,  so  sharp  that  the  day  when  the 
Greek  translation  was  made  was  regarded  by  the  Rabbinical 
authorities  as  a  day  of  calamity  parallel  to  that  which  saw 
the  manufacture  of  the  golden  calf. 

Leaving  the  Hellenistic  Jews  and  turning  to  those  of  Pales- 
tine, we  note  that  the  most  significant  feature  of  society  is 
the  sharp  opposition  between  Pharisees  and  Sadducees.  We 
have  already  met  the  Pharisees  as  the  strict  observers  of  the 


344  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Law.  The  conflict  between  them  and  their  enemies  came 
(according  to  Josephus)  in  the  time  of  John  Hyrcanus.  The 
Sadducees  seem  to  have  been  adherents  of  the  Maccabean 
house,  and  it  is  probable  that  we  have  an  important  document 
from  a  member  of  this  party  in  the  first  book  of  Maccabees. 
The  object  of  the  author  is  evidently  to  set  forth  the  merits 
of  the  ruling  family,  and  this  he  does  by  a  plain,  unvarnished 
narrative  of  the  deeds  of  the  heroic  brothers  who  deserved 
so  well  of  the  nation.  His  piety  is  of  the  good,  old-fashioned 
sort  such  as  we  discover  in  Ben  Sira.  The  miraculous  inter- 
position of  angels  on  which  other  narratives  of  the  period 
love  to  dwell  are  absent  from  his  story,  but  this  is  not  because 
he  doubts  the  presence  of  the  God  of  Israel  with  his  people 
to  deliver  them  in  time  of  peril.  He  thinks  that  Antiochus 
was  brought  to  a  realising  sense  of  his  sin  against  Jerusalem 
by  the  illness  which  befell  him  (I  Mac.  6  :  12),  regards  the 
death  of  Nicanor  as  an  example  of  the  divine  retribution 
(7  :  47),  and  treats  similarly  that  of  Alkimus,  the  Hellenising 
high  priest  who  tore  down  the  temple  wall  (9  :  55).  He 
makes  the  piety  of  Judas  evident  by  describing  his  prepa- 
rations for  battle  (3  :  56;  4:9  and  30),  and  justifies  his 
slaughter  of  his  male  prisoners  by  pointing  out  that  it  is 
strictly  according  to  the  Law.  He  shows  us  that  Jonathan's 
title  to  the  high-priesthood  is  exactly  the  same  as  that  of 
Alkimus,  whom  the  Chasidim  were  so  ready  to  recognise, 
the  appointment  in  each  case  having  come  from  the  Syrian 
monarch  (10  :  20).  His  hatred  of  renegade  Jews  is  genuine, 
and  he  takes  pains  to  show  that  the  woes  of  Israel  were 
due  to  them  rather  than  to  the  gentiles  (11  :  21,  25).  He 
rarely  blames  the  stricter  party,  and  then  only  mildly,  as 
when  he- condemns  them  for  trusting  in  Alkimus  (7  :  13/.). 
The  emphasis  laid  on  the  piety  of  Simon  Maccabeus  shows 
the  mind  of  the  author,  for  he  dwells  on  the  fact  that  it  was 
Simon  who  expelled  the  heathen  from  Gazara,  cleansed  the 
city  from  idols,  and  settled  observers  of  the  Law  there, 
entering  the  city,  moreover,  with  the  singing  of  Psalms 
(13  :  47  ff.).  The  action  of  the  Jewish  Council  in  making 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  345 

Simon  general  and  leader  of  the  nation  was  ratified  by  the 
divine  blessing  which  followed,  for  in  the  days  of  Simon  "they 
tilled  their  ground  in  peace  and  the  earth  gave  her  increase, 
and  the  trees  of  the  field  their  fruit;  the  old  men  sat  in  the 
streets  communing  of  good  things,  and  the  young  men  put 
on  glorious  and  warlike  apparel.  .  .  .  He  made  peace  in  the 
land  and  Israel  rejoiced  with  great  joy,  for  every  man  sat 
under  his  vine  and  his  fig-tree  and  there  was  none  to  fray 
them.  .  .  .  Moreover  he  strengthened  all  those  of  the  peo- 
ple that  were  brought  low;  the  Law  he  searched  out  and 
every  contemner  of  the  Law  and  every  wicked  person  he 
took  away;  he  beautified  the  sanctuary  and  multiplied  the 
vessels  of  the  temple"  (14 : 8-15).  If  this  be  a  fair  example 
of  Sadducean  opinion,  the  members  of  this  party  were  not 
lacking  in  devotion  to  Israel's  ideals. 

The  point  made  against  them  in  the  New  Testament  is 
that  they  did  not  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
This  is  confirmed  by  the  book  before  us  when  compared 
with  the  second  book  of  Maccabees,  apparently  a  Pharisaic 
document.  Our  book  makes  no  reference  to  a  resurrection 
or  to  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  though  the  description  of  the 
death  of  Mattathias  and  of  his  heroic  sons  would  have  given 
abundant  opportunity  to  allude  to  such  a  belief.  The  second 
book,  on  the  other  hand,  not  only  states  that  Judas  believed 
in  the  resurrection,  but  that  he  caused  sin-offerings  to  be 
offered  on  behalf  of  the  dead  just  because  he  expected  them 
to  be  raised  (II  Mac.  12  :  44).  The  reason  why  the  Sad- 
ducees  refused  to  adopt  this  belief  was  no  doubt  that  they 
did  not  find  it  taught  in  the  Pentateuch.  It  is  probable  also 
that  this  party  was  not  affected  by  the  extravagant  hopes 
of  the  apocalypses.  Adherents  of  the  Maccabean  house, 
they  regarded  the  Messianic  hope  as  reasonably  fulfilled  in 
the  elevation  of  that  dynasty  to  the  throne.  One  of  the 
Psalms,  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made  (110),  con- 
gratulates Simon  that  the  divine  decree  has  made  him  priest 
for  ever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek.  In  spite  of  this 
thoroughly  religious  tone  at  the  outset,  however,  the  Sad- 


346  THE  RELIGION   OF  ISRAEL 

ducean  party  became  more  and  more  worldly  as  the  princes 
became  mere  temporal  rulers.  Hence  the  decline  in  power 
of  the  Sadducees,  and  their  final  extinction.  The  Roman 
rule  disregarded  any  claims  that  might  be  put  forward  for 
a  native  Jewish  prince. 

The  mass  of  the  people  sympathised  with  the  Pharisaic 
point  of  view.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  common  people 
could  be  counted  in  the  strict  sense  Pharisees.  Punctilious 
adherence  to  a  complicated  law  and  to  the  casuistic  tradi- 
tions that  gather  about  such  a  law  is  impossible  to  the  man 
in  the  street.  Knowledge  of  this  tradition  requires  serious 
and  prolonged  study,  which  comparatively  few  men  are  in 
position  to  give.  Strict  avoidance  of  contact  with  the  gen- 
tiles, which  was  the  root  principle  of  Pharisaism,  was  im- 
practicable for  those  who  engaged  in  active  business  in  the 
midst  of  foreigners.  The  Pharisees  themselves,  that  is, 
those  who  were  punctilious  in  observing  the  commandments 
and  traditions,  drew  a  sharp  line  of  demarcation  between 
themselves  and  the  mass  of  their  coreligionists,  whom  they 
called  the  people  of  the  land.  They  said:  "This  people 
which  knows  not  the  Law  is  accursed."  Yet  these  same  peo- 
ple of  the  land  looked  up  to  the  Pharisees  as  their  teachers, 
and  were  willing  to  follow  them  so  far  as  lay  in  their  power. 
Their  attitude  was  something  like  the  attitude  of  lay  Chris- 
tians toward  members  of  the  monastic  orders,  as  men  who 
have  attained  a  sanctity  to  which  the  ordinary  man  cannot 
aspire.  That  the  members  of  the  party  often  succumbed  to 
the  temptation  to  emphasise  ceremonial  purity  at  the  ex- 
pense of  ethical  sincerity  is  evident  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment; but  that  the  party  contained  many  serious-minded  and 
devoted  adherents  to  the  God  of  Israel  we  must  believe. 

Pharisaic  legalism  has  left  its  mark  on  a  considerable  liter- 
ature. Hatred  of  the  gentiles  we  have  already  seen  exem- 
plified in  the  book  of  Esther.  Opposition  to  intermarriage 
with  other  races  goes  back  to  the  time  of  Nehemiah,  and  it  is 
emphasised  in  a  later  ordinance  that  any  Israelite  who  gives 
his  daughter  in  marriage  to  a  gentile  shall  be  stoned,  and  the 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  347 

young  woman  shall  be  burned  (Jubilees  30  : 7/.).  The  author 
of  Esther,  it  is  true,  allowed  his  heroine  to  become  a  member 
of  Xerxes'  harem.  But  the  supplementer  of  the  narrative, 
whose  work  is  preserved  in  the  Greek  version  of  the  book, 
makes  her  express  the  utmost  horror  of  such  a  fate  (Gr. 
Esther  3  :  26/.).  The  crime  of  such  a  marriage  is  sacrilege, 
defilement  of  the  sacred  blood  of  Israel,  and  it  brings  all 
kinds  of  plague  and  curse  on  the  nation  (Jubilees  30  :  14-17). 
Later  the  prohibition  was  made  even  more  rigid,  forbid- 
ding a  Pharisee  to  give  his  daughter  to  any  but  a  Pharisee. 

The  book  of  Jubilees,  from  which  we  have  just  drawn, 
shows  how  the  most  devoted  adherent  of  the  sacred  code  is 
obliged  to  supplement  it  in  accordance  with  the  ideas  of  his 
own  time.  The  author  rewrites  the  narrative  of  Genesis  in 
order  to  make  clear  things  concerning  which  the  original  text 
is  silent.  It  is  his  conviction  that  there  is  strict  correspon- 
dence between  things  heavenly  and  things  earthly.  Human 
chronology  must  be  made  to  correspond  with  that  used  in 
heaven,  else  the  angels  will  be  observing  Sabbath  on  one  day, 
and  men  will  be  observing  it  on  another;  and  so  with  the 
New  Moon  and  other  festivals  (Jubilees  1:5,  14;  6  :  32/.). 
The  feast  of  Tabernacles  is  inaugurated  by  Abraham  instead 
of  by  Moses  (16  :  20-31).  The  Passover  is  commended  be- 
cause its  observance  insures  against  plagues  for  the  following 
year  (49  :  15).  Noah  observed  the  law  of  first-fruits  (7  :  1). 
The  conquest  of  Canaan  is  justified  on  the  ground  that  it 
had  first  been  assigned  by  lot  to  Shem  (10  :  28-36).  These 
specimens  may  show  the  freedom  with  which  the  Law  was 
treated  in  the  interest  of  the  Law  itself,  or  rather  of  the  tra- 
dition which  had  grown  up  about  it. 

Pharisaic  ideals  have  also  coloured  the  narratives  of  Tobit 
and  Judith.  Tobit,  although  represented  as  living  in  the 
northern  kingdom,  sends  tithes  and  firstlings  to  Jerusalem, 
and  makes  the  pilgrimage  thither,  abstains  from  the  food  of 
the  heathen,  and  shares  his  goods  with  his  poorer  brethren. 
When  in  exile  he  buries  the  unfortunate  Jews  who  are  the 
victims  of  persecution,  braving  even  the  wrath  of  the  king 


348  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

in  order  to  carry  out  this  religious  duty.  Judith  is  more 
pronounced.  It  declares  specifically  that  Israel  will  be  pro- 
tected so  long  as  it  keeps  the  Law,  but  when  it  disobeys  by 
trespassing  upon  the  sacred  offerings,  tithes,  or  first-fruits, 
it  will  be  destroyed  (Judith  11  :  11-18).  The  deed  of 
Simeon  and  Levi,  which  is  condemned  by  the  author  of 
Genesis,  is  now  praised  because  they  slew  the  Canaanites 
(9  :  2-4).  The  heroine,  though  willing  to  deceive  the 
heathen  general,  is  careful  to  eat  only  clean  food,  and  to 
bathe  every  night  because  of  possible  defilement  contracted 
in  the  camp  of  the  enemy  (12  :  7).  A  similar  point  of  view 
animates  the  series  of  poems  called  the  Psalms  of  Solomon, 
and  they  show  also  the  deepening  breach  between  the  Phar- 
isees and  the  Maccabean  house.  The  members  of  this  house 
are  said  in  so  many  words  to  have  usurped  the  throne  of 
David,  and  the  writer  regards  their  deposition  by  the  Roman 
power  as  a  just  punishment.  The  Roman  Pompey,  however, 
is  punished  in  turn,  for  he  had  desecrated  the  temple  by 
entering  the  Most  Sacred  chamber  (Ps.  Sol.  17  :  4-10).  The 
calamities  which  befell  Jerusalem  were  interpreted  as  the 
vengeance  of  God  on  the  Hellenising  party,  though  it  is  also 
intimated  that  the  chastisement  is  intended  to  rouse  the 
sinner  to  a  sense  of  his  sin.  The  righteous  man  is  the  one 
who  constantly  searches  his  house  to  cleanse  it,  who  erases 
unwitting  sins  by  fasting,  and  who  chastens  himself  thor- 
oughly (3  :  7/.).  The  sinners  who  are  said  to  be  members 
of  the  supreme  council  of  the  nation  (and  we  may  now  call 
it  the  Sanhedrin)  are  probably  the  Sadducees,  and  it  is  they 
who  are  stigmatised  as  the  ungodly  (3  and  4).  While  the 
ideal  of  this  party  was  undoubtedly  that  for  the  present  the 
government  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Sanhedrin,  yet 
they  had  a  lively  expectation  of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
They  looked  for  the  return  of  the  dispersed  Jews,  and  for  a 
true  son  of  David  to  take  the  throne.  "He  will  crush  the  un- 
righteous, will  cleanse  Jerusalem  from  the  heathen,  will 
judge  the  tribe  of  the  sacred  people,  and  keep  the  gentiles 
under  his  yoke"  (17  :  21-33). 


THE   FINAL  STAGE  349 

With  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70  all  the  Jewish 
parties  came  to  an  end  except  the  Pharisees.  The  Messianic 
hope  had  not  realised  itself,  and  the  various  calculations  of 
the  time  of  the  end  had  proved  fallacious.  Henceforth,  al- 
though the  hope  was  held,  an  anathema  was  pronounced  on 
any  one  who  should  attempt  to  fix  the  time  of  the  advent. 
Until  that  time  should  come,  all  that  was  left  to  the  faithful 
Jew  was  to  cleave  to  the  Law,  the  only  sacred  thing  that  re- 
mained to  him.  The  Bar  Kochba  rebellion  showed,  indeed, 
that  the  Messianic  hope  had  vitality  enough  to  rally  some 
desperate  adherents,  but  its  disastrous  termination  empha- 
sised the  admonition  not  to  determine  the  times  and  seasons, 
which  God  had  kept  in  his  own  power.  The  remnant  that 
survived  resigned  themselves  to  the  task  of  building  a  hedge 
about  the  Law,  leaving  the  time  of  the  kingdom  to  God. 

One  monument  of  the  feeling  of  the  Jews  after  the  fall  of 
their  city  may  claim  our  attention.  This  is  the  so-called 
fourth  book  of  Ezra.  The  deep  pessimism  with  which  the 
author  treats  the  problem  of  sin  and  punishment  shows  how 
his  faith  was  tried.  To  the  question  whether  there  are  few 
that  be  saved  he  does  not  hesitate  to  give  an  affirmative 
answer  (IV  Ezra  7  :  47;  8  :  1-3).  The  spectacle  of  the  tri- 
umph of  the  hated  Roman  power  and  the  sufferings  of  the 
faithful  makes  him  realise  that  the  ways  of  God  are  unsearch- 
able, and  we  wonder  that  he  can  attempt  to  throw  light  upon 
them.  But  his  surcharged  feelings  must  find  vent.  The 
fact  that  the  present  age  is  wholly  evil  is  taken  to  prove  that 
it  must  be  succeeded  by  another.  The  fulness  of  times  must 
be  at  hand  and  these  overturnings  are  signs  of  the  end  (4 : 40 
and  chapter  5).  The  reason  for  these  fearful  judgments  is 
found  in  the  universal  corruption  of  mankind,  for  it  is  evi- 
dent that  if  Israel  has  sinned  the  heathen  are  no  better. 
For  the  first  time  we  meet  the  unequivocal  declaration  that 
Adam's  sin  brought  all  these  woes  into  the  world  (7  :  ll/). 
Hence  came  the  corruption  of  the  human  heart  (4  : 12,  22,  30). 
Yet  even  in  his  despair  the  writer  asserts  that  God  is  merciful, 
and  he  again  takes  up  the  Messianic  hope.  God's  Son,  the 


350  THE  RELIGION  OF  ISRAEL 

Messiah,  will  appear  and  will  rejoice  the  remnant  four  hun- 
dred years.  After  this  he  will  die — the  only  distinct  asser- 
tion of  the  death  of  the  Messiah  which  we  have  yet  found. 
Then  after  seven  days,  during  which  all  men  sleep,  the  res- 
urrection comes,  followed  immediately  by  the  judgment 
(7  :  26-43). 

At  this  point  we  must  arrest  our  discussion  of  the  religion 
of  Israel.  The  religion  of  the  Talmud  which  prevailed  in  the 
Jewish  remnant  requires  separate  treatment.  Much  of  that 
which  the  people  of  Israel  had  developed  became  the  posses- 
sion of  Christianity,  and  thus  entered  into  one  of  the  great 
universal  religions.  Briefly  reviewing  the  ground  that  we 
have  gone  over,  we  may  recall  to  mind  that  when  the  Israel- 
ites first  came  into  the  light  of  history  they  were  a  group  of 
nomad  clans  with  a  religion  like  that  of  other  dwellers  in 
the  desert.  Their  God,  Yahweh,  was  apparently  the  local 
divinity  of  Kadesh,  who  was  made  party  to  a  coalition  of 
the  social  groups  in  that  region.  The  success  of  the  coalition 
led  to  the  invasion  of  Canaan  and  the  gradual  settlement  of 
that  country  by  the  immigrants.  In  Canaan  the  God  took 
on  the  features  of  an  agricultural  divinity,  receiving  the 
first-fruits  and  tithes  of  the  soil.  The  attempt  of  Ahab  to 
introduce  the  worship  of  the  Phoenician  Baal  led  to  a  reaction 
under  the  powerful  personality  of  Elijah.  The  prophetic 
party  thus  beginning  its  career  was  prompted  by  a  desire  for 
social  justice  as  well  as  for  religious  simplicity.  In  some 
centuries  of  conflict  this  party  clarified  its  aims  and  at  last 
preached  an  ethical  monotheism  for  Israel.  This  mono- 
theism would  not  have  triumphed  (humanly  speaking)  had 
it  not  been  for  the  exile.  In  the  exile  the  people  found  the 
bond  which  held  them  together  to  be  that  of  religion.  They 
therefore  became  a  church  rather  than  a  nation,  conscious 
of  possessing  a  unique  treasure  in  the  traditions  of  Moses 
and  the  Prophets,  carefully  avoiding  amalgamation  with 
those  of  different  faith. 

The  spread  of  Greek  ideas  after  the  time  of  Alexander  en- 


THE  FINAL  STAGE  351 

riched  the  religion  of  Israel  but  also  threatened  to  deprive 
it  of  its  most  characteristic  features.  This  danger  was  coun- 
teracted by  the  persecution  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  The 
two  things  on  which  the  Jews  had  laid  the  most  stress — the 
Law  and  the  temple — were  now  threatened  with  destruction. 
A  desperate  band  of  believers  rallied  to  their  defence,  recov- 
ered the  temple,  and  gave  the  Law  a  new  importance.  The 
same  period  saw  the  development  of  the  synagogue,  a  social 
centre  at  which  each  of  the  scattered  Jewish  communities 
could  study  the  Law  and  engage  in  prayer.  Behind  the 
devotion  to  the  Law,  the  temple  and  the  synagogue  was 
the  Messianic  hope,  most  highly  developed  in  the  time  of 
persecution  and  enriched  by  the  visions  of  the  apocalyptic 
writers.  The  synagogue,  the  Law,  and  the  Messianic  hope 
prepared  the  way  for  Christianity,  for  a  powerful  personality 
like  Paul  was  able  to  show  that  the  value  of  the  Law  as  a 
divine  revelation  might  be  unimpaired  even  if  it  ceased  to 
be  binding  as  a  rule  of  life.  The  synagogue  showed  the  pos- 
sibility of  worship  without  sacrifice  and  priesthood,  and  thus 
became  the  model  on  which  the  local  congregations  of  Chris- 
tians might  organise  themselves.  That  gentile  influence  was 
at  work  here  is  not  to  be  denied,  but  it  remains  true  that  the 
early  Christians  were  Jews  and  carried  over  into  the  Church 
the  things  which  were  of  so  much  value  to  them.  The  belief 
that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  would  not  have  sustained  the 
faith  of  the  infant  Church  had  it  not  adopted  the  Jewish 
expectation  of  a  speedy  advent  of  the  Son  of  David,  or  the 
Son  of  Man,  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  judge  the 
world  and  to  introduce  the  kingdom  of  God.  Nourished  by 
this  hope,  the  young  Christian  community  organised  itself 
in  independence  of  the  Judaism  from  which  it  sprang,  and 
started  to  conquer  the  world.  Judaism  withdrew  all  the 
more  closely  within  itself  (compelled,  no  doubt,  by  persecu- 
tion from  without)  and  devoted  itself  to  legalism,  the  results 
of  which  are  embedded  in  that  gigantic  monument  of  human 
industry,  the  Talmud. 


INDEXES 


INDEXES 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES 


GENESIS 

CHAPTER 
1       

PAGE 

228 

CHA 

31 
31 
31 
31 
32 
32 
33 
33 
35 
35 
35 
35 
35 
37 
37 
39 
41 
42 
44 
47 
49. 
49 
49 
49 

2: 
3  : 
3: 
3  : 
4: 
4: 
5  : 
7: 
10 
12 
17 
17 
17 
17 
18 
18 

PTEB 

13  

PAGE 

14 

19  

45 

1 

1 

2 
3 
3 
4 
6 
6 
6 
8 
9 
11 
11 
12 
12 
12 
13 
14 
14 
14 
15 
16 
16 
17 
18 

14  

118 

42  

35 

26  

14 

45  

.  .  .  .  .  21 

4Jf 

103 

2 

94 

22 

14 

24-32 

24 

24    

.  .  .  83 

18  . 

94 

25  

41 

20  

22 

1-8  

109 

1  

14,  107 

2  

14 

4  

17 

6 

98 

g 

17  94 

20-22  

99 

19  

94 

4 

43 

20 

28 

1-9 

104,109 

2 

233 

5-7  

99 

35  

114 

6  

17 

9  

.  .  .  .  101 

7  

107 

32-39  

98 

10-20 

100 

2 

43 

18 

17 

15 

120 

5 

.  .  69 

30  

29 

7  

19 

30,92 

13  

17 

15.. 

64 

16 

100 

24  / 

108 

7-14  . 

18 

25 

14 

13   

....  97 

EXODUS 
24  

234 

1-8  

234 

97 

18 
18 
19 

1-4 

17 

1-12 

48 

20/  . 

99 

2  .     .  . 

18 

107 

13-18  

49 

20 
20 
21 
21 
21 
22 

1-18  

100 

21  

.  .  .  102 

9-11  

101 

24-26  

24 

14  

18 

3  

49 

22-34 

19 

11. 

120 

33 

....  17 

1. 

102 

89 

1-20  

220 

26 
26 
26 
27 

6-11  

100 

8-13  

.  .    56 

12  

106 

8-16  

54 

25 

107 

15 

22 

30 

16 

98 

28 
28 

10-22 

20 

5-12. 

50 

18.. 

76 

13-27.. 

51 

355 


356 


INDEXES 


CHA 
19 

19 
20 
20 
21 
21 
22 
22 
22 
22 
22 
22 
22 
23 
23 
24 
24 
24 
24 
25 
28 
?fl 

PTEB 

5  

PAGE 

.  .60,  113 

CHA 

19 
19 
19 
19 
19 
19 
20 
20 
21 
21 
21 
21 
22 
24 
25 

PTEB 

19  

PAGE 

214 

14  

113 

23-25  

216 

22/  

113 

26  

...  120 

24  

55,  107 

26-28. 

32 

6  

114 

26-36.  .  .  . 

214 

14  

114 

31  

121 

7-11  

61 

2-5  

71 

8-10  . 

114 

27 

31 

12..      ... 

137 

1-4 

32  215 

17  

31 

10-13  

32 

18  

120 

10-15  

215 

28  

88 

16-18  

.  .  .  215 

30 

113 

3 

215 

10-19 

111 

10-23 

218  224 

21  

.  59 

234 

3-8  

51 

26 

1 

4 
5 
5 
5 
6 
9 
10 
11 
1?, 

30  

68 

4  

21 

NUMBERS 
52 

218 

5  

77 

6-8 

22,39 

22 

218 

15 

218 

36-38  

219 

2 

30 

219 

11-31  

37 

29 
30 
31 
31 
32 
32 
32 
33 
33 
34 

38.. 

219 

14  

.  ...  128 

91 

91Q 

iq 

001 

6  

.  .  .  .  30 

14.      

231 

15-23 

217 

35 

44 

2-4  

...  36,  85 

17  . 

129 

12/  

99 

.  .  .  .  53 

QK  nr\ 

fro 

ZO—AV  

....   OO 
CQ 

12 
14 
15 
16 
16 
17 
1P 

6-8.. 

.  ...  123 

99  / 

no 

13-16  

.  .  .  .  99 

«*/  

111,  187 

32-36 

224  231 

15  

.  .  .  .  53 

34 
35 

3 
3 
5 
6 
6 
7 
8 
8 
10 
10 
11 
ift 

OA  DC 

917 

Olr-oO  

1-3  

....  224 

25-34 

306 

Ui  f» 

91  C 

LEVITICUS 

99n 

—  10  

.  .  .  .-  Zlo 
:    37 

19 
21 
22 
23 
23 
23 
23 
24 
24 
24 
25 
28 
31. 

13.. 

30 

29  

.  ...  186 

1  ^ 

41  

.  .  .  .  20 

9fL_9fi 

991 

1  

.  ...  112 

1-7  

221 

14 

20 

19-21  

.  ...  100 

1ft  99 

999 

5. 

999 

21  

.  ...  241 

10  -ff 

91  Q 

2  

.  ...  128 

\l*  

999 

4  

.  .  15,  127 

1-7  

218 

16 

15  128 

3-5 

66 

6  

218 

2 

220 

43  

.  .  .  .  214 

.  ...  234 

OOQ 

16 
17 

18 
18 

18 

•It   1  Q 

9OQ 

34  

234 

lO—  lo  

7 

LL6 
25  34 

1  : 

4: 

DEUTERONOMY 
4 

69 

3  

214 

21  

71 

24-30.. 

.  214 

2.. 

.  192 

INDEXES 


357 


CHAPTER 


7.... 185 

8..  192 

19..  69,118,184 

31 186 

1-21 187 

14 188 

4r-9 183 

3.... 72 

6 186 

7 186 

10/ 185 

25 191 

4/ 186 

7-20 186 

10:  17 185 

10  :  18 188 

11  :  13-16 194 

11  :  18-20 192 

11  :  29 , 194 

11  :30 17 

12  :2 70,185,189 

12  :  18 188 

12  :  29/ 191 

13  :  7-12 191 

13  :  13-17 190 

13  :  17 88 

15  :  1-3 188 

15  :  3 189 

16  :  11 188 

16:  18-20 188 

17  :  3 42 

18  :  9-12 118 

18  :  10 31 

18:  15-22 192 

14:  1 32,191,229 

14  :  23 185 

14  :  28 193 

20:  16-18 190 

21  :  1-9 33,192 

23  :  20 189 

24  :  15 188 

24  :  19/ 188 

25  :  13-15 188 

26:  14 32 

26  :  17-19 187 

27  :  2 65 

27  :  11-26 194 

32  :  8 15,184,305 

32:  17 15 

33 30 

33:2-5 58 

33  :  8 122 

33  :9 53,77 

33:14-16..  92 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

33:  16 18 

33  :  19 20,93 

33  :26/ 93 


9 

9 

9 

10 

10 

19 

21 

22 

24 

24 

24 


JOSHUA 

3 21,65 

13-15 25 


22-25. 
25.... 
26.... 
29.... 
10.... 
14.... 
15.... 

11... 

27.. 


87 

71 

29 

29 

69 

40 

195 

59 

29 

8 19,67 

27 69 

34 22 

2 13 

26 21,65 


32. 


29 


JUDGES 


1 64 

1:7 102 

1  :  16 53 

2  :  10-19 195 

3 87 

3:3 66 

3  :  10 79 

3  :  19 21 

3  :  20 154 

4:5 17 

4:  11 53 

4:  14 117 

4  :  17-22 53 

5:5 58 

5  :  31 92 

6:  11 19 

6  :  19 17 

6  :  21 76 

6:24 24 

6:25-28 74 

6:  34 79,128 

8:24-28 75 

8:25-27 36 

8:31 42 

8  :33 65 

9:4 65 

9:6 65 

9:9..  72 


& 

CE 

9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
11 
13 
14 
14 
14 
14 
15 
17 
17 
18 
18 
18 
21 

1 
2 
2 
2 
3 
3 
4 
5 
6 
6 
7 
7 
7 
q 

)8 

AFTER 

22   

INDEXES 

PAGE    CHAPTEB 

79  is  in 

PAGE 

124 

23  

103 

19  13  

121 

26  

73 

19  18-20  

79 

27  

89 

19  18-24  

124 

37 

17 

20  29 

89 

46 

65 

21  8. 

114 

29  . 

128 

22  18  

75 

25  ... 

79 

24  13  

103 

42 

25  1  

29 

1-3 

72 

25  39 

103 

4  

.  102 

26  19  

..73,102 

6 

79 

28     ... 

121 

14 

79 

28  13  

...  31 

1-5  

36 

28  19  

114 

5  

70,  121 

31  10  

69 

87 

II  SAMUEL 
5  20  

66 

14.. 

121 

30 

75 

89 

I  SAMUEL 
20 

41 

5  22-25  

18 

6  5  

44 

6  6/... 

101 

6  7 

78 

12-17 

77 

7  6 

66 

17 

102 

8  18 

78 

25  

102 

11  11  

114 

3  

77 

12  9-13  

102 

13  

102 

14  4-11  

43 

7 

44 

15  7 

75 

5 

164 

15  21 

114 

9  

.  115 

16  10-12. 

103 

19.  .  . 

.  .  .  101 

17  14  

103 

1  

78 

18  17  

29 

3-14  

227 

18  18  

28 

12 

65 

20  19 

115 

123 

20  25 

78 

9 
9 
9 
10 
10 
10 
10 
11 
12 
12 
14 
14 
15 
15 
15 
15 
16 
16 

5-13. 

78 

21  1-14.. 

60,71 

9  

79 

23  2... 

^.  129 

15  

.  ...  128 

24  

102 

2  

28 

24  11  

124 

5-16  

79 

I  KINGS 
1  9.. 

34 

9-12 

89 

10 

124 

6. 

79 

17  

..  59 

1  11. 

125 

18  

125 

1  50  

...  114 

35  

65 

2  3  

191 

41 

122 

2  32 

43  102 

54,87 

2  34 

29 

11.. 

.  .  .  .  98 

3  4  . 

72 

22  

126 

8  23  

.  .  .  184 

23  

.119,121 

8  29  

185 

4 

126 

11  :  4-8 

83 

14.. 

80 

11  :5-7.. 

70 

CH 
11 

12 

14 
15 

16 
17 

18 
18 

20 
21 

1 

3 
5 
5 
6 

7 
8 
9 

9 
10 
11 
14 
16 
17 
17 
17 
18 
19 
21 
21 

23 
23 
23 
23 

2  : 
6  : 

8  : 

A.PTEB 

29-39  

INDEXES 

PAGE          CHAPTER 

125      9  :  22                    . 

359 

PAGE 

236 

15  

...   102 

10 
15 
22 
24 

8  : 
11 
16 
17 
20 
21 
23 
25 
26 
29 
31 
35 
36 

1 

7 
7 

1  : 
2  : 

9: 

4 
4 
5 
7 
7 
7 
9 
10 
14 
14 
14 
19 
21 
31 
38 
40 

13  

235 

28  

...     84 

16-24  

236 

24  

...     72 

4  

.  .  236 

12 

72 

236 

1-4 

125 

II  CHRONICLES 
12-14.  . 

.  236 

34..    . 

...     88 

13-16  

...  125 

19  

...     76 

28 

39 

13-16 

237 

9-14  

34 

14 

33 

36  

.   126 

7-10.. 

237 

19  

...     43 

21-24  

237 

19  

...   150 

19  

33 

21-23  

.80,129 

3-7  

.  .  237 

II  KINGS 
10-12.. 

.  125 

6-10 

237 

16-20. 

237 

294 

2-6  

.  237 

8  

...   125 

.  .  237 

9  

...  129 

21  

.  .  237 

19 

125 

EZRA 
2  

.  334 

23-25  

125 

27  

89 

17 

74 

27 

126 

17-26  

..  238 

15-17 

127 

23  

..  334 

20  

...  126 

NEHEMIAH 
6-9.. 

241 

7-13. 

125 

11. 

79,  124 

22  

120 

13  

34 

24-26  

...   102 

ESTHER 

K 

15-17  

...     81 

2  

...   129 

23-27  

...   131 

3  

.    .     89 

JOB 
4 

268 

13  

.    .   124 

17  

...   120 

24-28. 

115 

4. 

33 

17-20 

268 

7  

128 

17-26.. 

269 

3-6  

.    .   163 

270 

6  8 

9,  119  / 
76 

12.. 

270 

4 

20  / 

270 

5  

69 

22 

271 

7  

...     72 

8 

271 

11  

...     69 

7-12.. 

272 

24  

...   121 

12  

.  306 

I  CHRONICLES 
55.. 

53 

13  

.  272 

25-27 

272 

7-9. 

273 

.  274 

16-32  

...  236 

.  .  274 

33/... 

73 

10-12.. 

.  274 

ObU                    INDEXES 
PSALMS             CHAPTER 

CHAPTEE                        PAGE    fJ2   3-6  

PAGE 

322 

1 
1 

3 

5 
6 
7 
7 
9 
9 
10 
11 
11 
12 
14 

2  220 

55  18 

316 

5  

328 

55  22 

322 

6  

319 

60  3-6. 

325 

4-6  

319 

65  5  

320 

6.... 

326 

65  9-12  

318 

7/  

328 

68  6  

319 

10  

319 

69  23-29 

322 

4  

318 

72 

329 

8/... 

318 

73  13/  

323 

4.. 

322 

73  23-26  

327 

1 

319 

74 

325 

4. 

322  325 

78 

320 

6 

319 

79 

325 

322 

82  1     ... 

328 

14 
15 

2  

328 

82  I/  .... 

331 

321 

84  11  

320 

16 
16 

18 
18 
18 
18 
18 
IP 

1-4.. 

317 

86  9  

330 

9-11 

327 

88  11 

326 

2       .  . 

319 

89  51 

329 

21-25  

324 

90 

326 

22  

321 

91      ... 

319 

44  

328 

91  H/  

331 

51  

329 

92  10  

.  .   330 

320 

93  1 

330 

19 
26 
28 
W 

15 

316 

94 

326 

If  .. 

324 

94  9/   . 

328 

8  

329 

94  20    ... 

328 

59 

96  13  

328 

29 
30 
3?, 

1.. 

330 

97  7  

.  .  .  .  317 

10  

326 

101  3-6  

321 

324 

103 

319 

33 
34 
34 
36 
37 

12 

318 

106  28 

33 

8    .... 

330 

110 

329  345 

12-14  

323 

115  3.. 

317 

5/... 

318 

115  3-7  

317 

323 

119  

320 

38 

40 

4-9  

324 

123  

319 

320 

139  7-10  

317 

40 
4?, 

10  . 

330 

146  4 

326 

319 

148       .  . 

318 

42 
44 

5  

320 

PROVERBS 
1  '  10/ 

286 

318 

44 
44 
46 

18/.., 

325 

23 

325 

319 

1  :  32 

283 

47 
48 

9f.  ., 

330 

2  :  12/  . 

287 

320 

3:5. 

281 

49 
50 

21  

323 

3  :  12  

284 

320 

3  :  16  

283 

50 
50 
51 

13.. 

233 

5  :  21 

281 

23  

321 

8  :  22-31  . 

282 

324 

9  :  5/.,  18.. 

283 

51 

14.. 

.  330 

15  :  8.. 

.  284 

INDEXES 


361 


CHAPTER 

17  15    

PAGE 

...  287 

CHA 

10 
•  11 
13 

PTEB 

5-11  

PAQE 

158 

17  28  

...  286 

1-8  

248 

28  9 

279 

247 

30  2-4 

290 

14 
14 
14 
17 
19 
20 
22 
24- 
24 
27 
27 
?,8 

9/... 

306 

30  7-9         .   . 

.  285 

is/.  ; 

247 

31  10-31 

287 

32. 

158 

ECCLESIASTES 

1:9  

.  289 

8  

68 

3  

121 

1-6  

149 

1  

0*7 

157 

OQ7 

2  :  19  

3.  -ic 

290 

9Qft 

21/  

297 

3.  17 

OQ1 

1  

297 

3.  10  / 

OQQ 

9  

68 

Q  .  01 

OQO 

156 

4  •  9 

oqo 

28 
28 
29 
29 
30 
30 
30 
31 
32 
33 
38 
40 
40 
41 
41 
42 
42 
42 
42 
43 
43 
43 
44 
44 
45 
45 
46 
47 
47 
48 
49 
49 
49 
50 
50 
51 
51 
52 
52 

9-11  

153 

8.  1  1  10 

OQ1 

15,  17  

157 

8«  1fi  / 

OQQ 

10  

124,151 

Q  •  ^ 

OQft 

13  

154 

9.  ift 

9QO 

1-6  

157 

19  •  1^1 

OQ1 

10/  

153 

SONG  OF  SONGS 
8:  11  

...  68 

15  

157 

1-3  

157 

If... 

248 

17.. 

249 

7 

118 

ISAIAH 
1  2f 

153 

13 

.  252 

27-31.  ...  . 

253 

8-10  

257 

22-24  

252 

1  11-15 

47 

1-4 

256 

1  21 

153 

2 

255 

1  29 

18  160 

9 

.  .  253 

2  2-4 

262 

22  

254 

2  6 

119 

254 

28 

.  .  160 

25.. 

255 

2  12-19 

158 

28 

255 

3  2 

119 

16  . 

.  251 

3  13-15 

153 

28  

255 

3  16-26 

.  .  153 

5-7  

251 

45 

.  249 

21-23  

256 

57.     

...  154 

11  

252 

5  14 

306 

9 

120 

5  25 

152 

13  .. 

.  118 

6 

149 

10  

256 

6  9f 

.  150 

1-6  

256 

6  11       

...  151 

3  

257 

7  9  

...  157 

23  

260 

8  1-3 

156 

6    

257 

8  12           ... 

.  .  161 

10  

260 

8  14       

.  .  .  151 

3  

259 

8  19 

31,  121 

4f 

259 

9  5 

248 

1  . 

.  259 

10:  1-3.. 

.  155 

14.. 

.  258 

362 


INDEXES 


CH 

53 
54 
55 
56 
56 
57 
58 
59 
59 
60 
60 
60 
61 
65 
65 
65 
66 
66 

1 

2 
2 
2 

2 
2 
3 
3 

4 
4 
4 
5 
5 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
7 
7 
7 
7 
7 
7 
7 
8 
8 
8 
9 
10 
11 
11 

A.PTER 

4 

PAGE 

258 

CHAPTEB 

13   

PAGE 

165 

llf 

259 

13 
14 

23  

175 

3-5 

259 

167 

1-8 

260 

15 
15 
16 
17 
19 
19 
20 
22 
22 
23 
25 
26 
27 
W 

1 

.  167 

6  

.  232 

10-21  

167 

15 

260 

7  

27 

5-8 

261 

21  

232 

1-4 

261 

5 

71 

21 

.  129 

10/.... 

176 

1  / 

259 

9 

128 

3  '" 

.  259 

13-17  

169 

19 

259 

24  

244 

6 

260 

25  

123 

4 

261 

15-29  

175 

20         

.  260 

18  

148 

25..     

...  260 

9  

..119,120 

17 

261 

.177 

24 

307 

29 
29 
30 
31 
31 
32 
34 
34 
35 
36 
50 

8.. 

.....  119 

JEREMIAH 
9    

.  128 

26 

124 

md  31  . 

246 

15  . 

28 

32-34  

246 

2f 

200 

35  

71 

5 

175 

5  

33 

8            .  . 

175 

18  

110 

27     

...  18 

6-10  

81 

28 

13 

3 

...  176 

1 

174 

247 

6.. 

18 

1 

2 
4 
5 
q 

EZEKIEL 

28 

199 

5-9 

.  165 

19  / 

..  166 

24? 

176 

Iff;;; 

169 

8/ 

.  128,  197 

22 

270 

14 

.  197 

2 

166 

5  

198 

10 

.  174 

202 

13 

.  170 

9 
13 
13 
14 
14 
15 
16 

4.. 

203 

20 

...  173 

9  

119 

26          

...  31 

17-23  

120 

29    

...  175 

14  

..203,299 

4-11  

...  173 

21-23  

205 

13 

174 

2   

201 

15 

176 

200 

17 

171 

16 
16 
17 
18 
18 
20 
20 
20 
20 
21 
21 

48.. 

202 

21-23 

172 

53 

206 

22 

47 

16  

....  202 

33  f 

176 

20         .  . 

...  203 

5 

175 

32   

204 

8 

168 

5-10  

200 

21  / 

.  .  166 

11-13  

201 

2-5  

...  168 

25  

...  88 

1 

118 

28 

.20,201 

1-5 

168 

21-23  

119 

15.. 

.  173 

26-28.  . 

.  119 

INDEXES 


363 


CHA 

22 
22 
22 
22 
28 
28 
28 
28 
29 
33 
33 
33 
36 
36 
39 
43 
44 
44 
45 
45 
45 
46 
46 

2 
7 
7 
7 
7 
7 
9 
10 
11 
11 
12 
12 
12 

1 
2 
2 
3 
4 
4 
5 
5 
5 
6 
6 
6 

PTEB 

1-12 

PAGE 

202 

CHAPTER 

6  9. 

PAGE 

142 

9 

20 

7  11  

143 

214 

7  14  

....          39 

16       

198 

8  4  

143 

3 

299 

8  5  

142 

13 

105,  128 

9  3.. 

47  114  144 

14 

83 

9  3-5  

134 

24 

206 

10  1  

141 

11-13.     

242 

10  5  

142 

1-9.  . 

204 

11  1  

47 

10  

204 

11  1-3... 

200 

11 

204 

11  3. 

141 

17-19 

.  202 

11  8/.... 

....         144 

20-28  

205 

12  10.... 

47 

21/.., 

206 

12  14  

47 

7.  ... 

33 

13  7/.... 

144 

7 

233 

13  10/  . 

143 

23  / 

209 

13  14.. 

.  .       144 

13-17. 

209 

14  2-10.. 

145 

17  

210 

14  4  

247 

18-20  

210 

1  6.. 

JOEL 
295 

2 

209 

16-18 

209 

DANIEL 
35  

.  301 

1  13  

295 

2  If  . 

296 

3  1..  . 

.  .        129,296 

9/.  .. 

305 

3  16/.... 

297 

9-14.. 

302 

1  •  3-5 

AMOS 
135 

10 

300 

11  / 

301 

21-27 

302 

26  

..  ..304 

2  :  &-8. 

136 

13  

305 

2:9..  . 

.  .          134 

14  

301 

2  :  10.  ... 

47 

34  

301 

3:1  

47 

If 

.  .  .  304 

3  :  2 

134  139 

2 

306 

3  :  8 

134 

7  

304 

3:9.. 

136 

HOSEA 

4 

143 

3  :  12  

137 

4:1  

136 

4:4  

135 

4  :  6-9 

134 

7  .      

.  .  68,  141 

5  :  4/ 

139 

17  

47 

5:7.. 

136 

4  

..70,121 

5  :  14/.., 

.  .   .         139 

1  

141 

5  :21  

135 

6/  

142 

5  :  24  

139 

1 

...  77 

5  :  25 

47  135 

8-10  

144 

6:1-3.. 

136 

13  

143 

6  :  12  

136 

1 

145 

6  :  13 

134 

4 

145 

7  :  1-9 

136 

6.. 

.  143 

7:  12.. 

.  124 

364 


INDEXES 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

7     14... 

133 

7     17  

.115,134 

9     1-4  

....   137 

9    7  

134,  139 

JONAH 

1  :3  

114 

MlCAH 

1 

5  

.  147 

2 

I/  

....   148 

9  

....   148 

2 

11  

148 

3 

1  

....   148 

3 

5  

....   148 

3 

7  

....   124 

3 

8  

....   147 

3 

11  

148 

3 

12  

....   148 

5 

1-3  

248 

HABAKKUK 

1  :  15.. 

.  265 

2  :  20  

....  265 

3  

.  .  .     295 

3  :  17-19  

....  265 

ZEPHANIAH 


1  :  4-9, 


164 


HAGGAI 
1  :9. 


2  : 

21-23  

.  .  .  A^O 

244 

ZECHARIAH 

8  : 

1-8.. 

.  244 

9-14  

.  .  .  298 

9  : 

9  

...  249 

9  : 

10  

...  299 

10 

2  

..  121 

12 

2  

..  298 

12 

11  

298 

13 

1  

.  298 

14 

16  

..  298 

14 

20/.  .  . 

298 

MALACHI 

1  : 

6-8  

.  244 

2: 

17  

.  244 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

3:5  

120 

3  :8  

244 

3  :  13  /  

245 

3:  16/  

245 

3:  19  

245 

IV  EZRA  (II  ESDRAS) 

4  12  

349 

4  40  

349 

7  11  

349 

7  48  

349 

TOBIT 

5  :  20  

310 

6  :  14  

310 

JUDITH 

9:2-4  

348 

11  11-18  

348 

12  7  

348 

14  10  

337 

GREEK  ESTHER 

3  :  26  /  

347 

5  :  16  

334 

WISDOM  OF  SOLOMON 

2  1... 

292 

3  8  

292 

3  13  

341 

4  6  

341 

14:  15/  

341 

SlRACH  (ECCLESIASTICUS) 

1  4  

282 

1  10  

282 

1  26  

282 

2  5  

284 

2  10  /  

284 

2  13  

281 

3  3-5  

281 

3  21  

280 

3  30  

284 

4  11  

283 

6  6-9  

286 

6  15  /  

286 

11  4  

281 

12  16  

286 

13  2-13  

286 

INDEXES 


365 


CHAPTER 

14  16  

PAGE 

..  283 

15  14/  

..  284 

17  5-10 

285 

22  27  ff 

285 

23  10/  . 

281 

24  23  

..  282 

26  3  

..  287 

33  5  

..  280 

36  22 

280 

39  1-4 

288 

42  15  ff... 

.  280 

48  9  

..  280 

50  26 

280 

51 

285 

BARUCH 
1  :  10-12  

.  335 

2  :  21-24  

..  335 

I  MACCABEES 
3  56 

344 

5  35 

336 

6  12  . 

344 

7  13  

344 

7  33  

.  335 

7  47  

.  .  344 

9  55  

.  .  344 

10  20 

344 

10  83... 

336 

11  21... 

344 

12  11  

.  .  335 

13  47  

.  .  344 

14  8-15 

344 

II  MACCABEES 
9  :  19-27  . 

334 

10  29  

309 

12  43-45  

..  311 

12  44 

345 

IV  MACCABEES 
9  :  8  f  .  .  . 

.  311 

JUBILEES 


1 

5  

347 

6 

30-32  

308 

7 

1  

347 

10 

1-12 

310 

10 

28-36 

.  .  347 

16 

20-31.. 

.  347 

CHAPTER 

30    7f  

PAGE 

347 

30     14-17  

347 

48    2  

310 

49     15  

347 

EPISTLE  OF  ARISTEAS 

16  

334 

45  

335 

51  /  

335 

ENOCH 

1:4-9  

310 

7  

310 

9:6  

310 

10     17-22  

314 

24  

314 

27  

314 

39    6/  

313 

46  

312 

47-53  

310 

48     1-6  

312 

48    3-5  

313 

55    4  

313 

81  

308 

89  /  

309 

90    20  

310 

91     10-17  

312 

93  

309 

SIBYLLINE  BOOKS 

III     Prooemium  

340 

Ill    46  

339 

Ill     63-85  

339 

Ill     110-116  

339 

Ill     194  

340 

Ill    218-245  and  702  /  

340 

IV:  161-190  

340 

SECRETS  OP  ENOCH 

23.. 

313 

APOCALYPSE  OF  BARUCH 
29 314 

PSALMS  OF  SOLOMON 

3:7 348 

17  :  4-10 348 

17  :  21-33 348 

17  :28..  .  337 


366 


INDEXES 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Abel's  Sacrifice,  112. 

Agnosticism,  290. 

Agricultural  Religion,  67. 

Allegorical  Interpretation,  5,  342. 

Altar,  The,  22. 

Amalgamation,  65. 

Amos,  133. 

Angels,  305,  330. 

Angels,  Patron  divinities,  305. 

Angels,  Rebellious,  309. 

Animal  worship,  33. 

Anointing,  81. 

Anthropomorphism,  98,  104,  199. 

Antisemitism,  332. 

Apocalypses,  294. 

Archangels,  309. 

Aristeas,  letter  of,  337. 

Ark,  The,  44,  82. 

Ark  in  War,  The,  74. 

Ashtoreth,  68. 

Asideans,  293. 

Assyria,  137. 

Astarte,  42,  68. 

Astrology,  118. 

Asylum,  114. 

Atonement,  221. 

Augury,  119. 

Azazel,  223,  309. 

Baal,  66. 

Babel,  Tower  of,  109. 

Babylon,  Hatred  of,  246. 

Balaam,  100. 

Ben  Sira,  278. 

Bethel,  84. 

Blessing  of  Moses,  92. 

Blindness,  Judicial,  150. 

Blood,  The,  23,  39. 

Blood,  Cleansing  power  of,  222. 

Blood,  Prohibition  of,  232. 

Blood  Covenant,  39. 

Blood  Revenge,  43. 

Book,  Finding  of  the,  179. 

Book,  The  Heavenly,  302. 

Book  of  Remembrance,  245. 

Bull,  The  Golden,  84. 

Burial-places,  29. 

Burnt  offering,  The  Daily,  219. 

Calf,  The  Golden,  84. 
Call  of  Jeremiah,  164. 
Canaan,  Yahweh's  Land,  115. 


Canaanite  Religion,  66. 

Canaanite  Sanctuaries,  189. 

Canaanites,  The,  64. 

Canaanites,  Extermination  of  the, 
190. 

Cherubim,  83,  199. 

Childbirth  unclean,  213. 

Child-sacrifice,  172. 

Chronicles,  Books  of,  235. 

Circumcision,  24,  38,  224. 

Circumcision,  sign  of  the  Cove- 
nant, 232. 

Circumcision  obligatory,  232. 

Clan  Divinities,  41. 

Clean  and  unclean,  36. 

Clients,  189. 

Consecration  by  Blood,  209. 

Consecration  of  Priests,  219. 

Covenant,  The,  37,  168,  185. 

Covenant,  The  new,  246. 

Covenant  Code,  The,  113. 

Covenant  with  Abraham,  110. 

Covenant  with  Yahweh,  50. 

Creation-story,  The,  103. 

Criticism,  The  Higher,  7. 

Cup-augury,  120. 

Cyrus,  Decree  of,  238. 

Daniel,  The  Book  of,  299. 

Day  of  Atonement,  223. 

Day  of  Yahweh,  The,  158,  164, 

Deborah,  Song  of,  91. 
Decalogue,  The  earliest,  111. 
Decalogue  of  Deuteronomy,  187. 
Defilement  by  Idols,  190. 
Deluge,  The,  108. 
Demons  of  Disease,  213. 
Deuteronomic  Redaction,  194. 
Deuteronomic  Reform,  168. 
Deutero-Isaiah,  249. 
Deuteronomy,  182. 
Disease,  Demons  of,  213. 
Divination,  118. 
Dreams,  122. 
Dry  bones,  Vision  of,  205. 

Ecclesiastes,  288. 
Ecclesiasticus,  278. 
Egyptian  Sojourn,  The,  48. 
El,  14. 
Election  of  Israel,  96,  186. 


INDEXES 


367 


Elihu,  275. 

Elijah,  86. 

Elijah's  Return,  245. 

Eliphaz,  268. 

Elohim,  14. 

Elyon,  15. 

End  of  the  World,  304. 

Enemies,  286. 

Enoch  Literature,  308. 

Ephod,  The,  75. 

Epicureanism,  291. 

Essenes,  The,  333. 

Ethical  Attributes,  99. 

Ethical    Demands    of    Jeremiah, 

168. 

Ethical  Will  of  Yahweh,  139. 
Ethics  and  Religion,  274. 
Ethics  of  the  Psalms,  322. 
Ethics  of  the  Sages,  281. 
Eudemonism,  194. 
Exclusiveness,  Jewish,  346. 
Exiles,  The,  196. 
Exodus,  The,  47. 
Ezekiel,  197. 
Ezekiel's  Program,  242. 
Ezra,  Fourth  Book  of,  349. 

Face  of  Yahweh,  59. 

Faith,  Jewish  Confession  of,  183. 

Faith  in  Yahweh,  260. 

Faith  of  Jeremiah,  167. 

Faith  of  Job,  272.- 

Fast,  The  true,  260. 

Fear  of  God,  35. 

Forgiveness,  255,  324. 

Foundation-sacrifice,  23. 

Fountains,  Sacred,  18. 

Free  Will,  284. 

Friendship,  286. 

Future  Life,  289,  326. 

Gabler,  6. 

Gabriel,  305. 

Garden  of  Yahweh,  104. 

Gehenna,  307,  314. 

Genealogies,  238. 

Gibeon,  71. 

Glory  of  Yahweh,  199. 

Gog,  206. 

Golden  Calf,  The,  84. 

Gravestones,  30. 

Greek  Translation,  338. 

Guardian  Angels,  310. 

Guardian  Angels,  National,  305. 

Guilt-offering,  221. 


Habakkuk,  265. 

Haggai,  243. 

Hatred  of  Gentiles,  335. 

Heavenly  Tablets,  308. 

Heavens,  Observation  of  the,  117. 

Holiness,  150,  152. 

Holiness  Code,  The,  212. 

Hosea,  140. 

Human  Sacrifice,  70,  87. 

Idols,  Scorn  for,  251. 
Images,  Molten,  75. 
Images,  Reaction  against,  160. 
Image-worship,  66. 
Immortality,  341. 
Imprecatory  Psalms,  322. 
Individual  Recompense,  202. 
Individualism,  167. 
Intercession,  99. 
Intermarriage,  72. 
Isaac,  Sacrifice  of,  112. 
Isaiah,  148. 
Israel,  The  Ideal,  257. 
Israel  and  Foreigners,  188. 

J  and  E,  93. 

Jeremiah,  162. 

Jeroboam  II,  131. 

Jerusalem,  The  New,  314. 

Jerusalem  the  Golden,  259. 

Jethro,  50. 

Jezebel,  85. 

Job,  The  Book  of,  266.' 

Job's  Friends,  267.  * 

Joel,  295. 

Jonah,  The  Book  of,  264. 

Josiah's  Reform,  180. 

Jubilees,  Book  of,  347. 

Judgment,  The,  310,  328. 

Judgment,  The  Day  of,  296. 

Judgment  of  Angels,  297,  328. 

Judgment  by  Yahweh,  246. 

Judgment-scene,  301. 

Justice  of  God,  101,  271. 

Kadesh,  52. 

Kindness  of  Yahweh,  318. 

Koheleth,  288. 

Land,  Division  of  the,  234. 
Law,  Jewish  Defence  of  the,  338. 
Law  the  Source  of  Wisdom,  279. 
Legalism,  First  Stage  of,  192. 
Legalistic  Piety,  320. 


368 


INDEXES 


Leper,  The,  213. 

Levites,  The,  77,  188,  208,  218. 

Levitical  Cities,  226. 

Libations,  76. 

Literary  Methods,  Ancient,  8. 

Local  Divinities,  25. 

Locusts,  295. 

Love,  Yahweh's,  145. 

Lowly,  Promise  to  the,  260. 

Maccabees,  First,  344. 

Maccabees,  Second,  336. 

Maccabees,  Third,  335. 

Maccabees,  Fourth,  341. 

Macceba,  The,  21. 

Majesty  of  Yahweh,  158. 

Malachi,  244. 

Manasseh,  162. 

Matriarchy,  41. 

Messiah,  The,  298,  311,  348. 

Messiah  the  King,  248. 

Messiah  in  the  Psalms,  329. 

Messianic  Hope,  The,  161,  241. 

Micah,  147. 

Michael,  305. 

Midianite  War,  The,  234. 

Millennium,  The,  311. 

Mission  of  Israel,  258. 

Missionary  Activity,  337. 

Moloch,  70. 

Monotheism,  13,  140,  211,  251. 

Moon-worship,  42. 

Moses,  46. 

Mourning  Customs,  31. 

Mythology,  95. 

Nadab  and  Abihu,  218. 

Name,  Vindication  of  Yahweh's, 

200. 

Narratives,  The  early,  91. 
Nazirate,  The,  80. 
Necromancy,  31. 
Nehemiah,  240. 
Nomadic  Religion,  12. 

Omnipresence,  317. 
Oracle,  The,  77. 
Ordeals,  37. 

Passover,  The,  40. 

Pastoral  Care,  Ezekiel's,  204. 

Patriarchs,  Lives  of  the,  94. 

Penuel,  24. 

Persecution  of  Antiochus,  293. 

Pessimism,  Jewish,  309. 


Pharisees,  The,  333,  346. 

Philo  Judseus,  341. 

Pietism,  7. 

Plan  of  God,  The,  300. 

Political  Activity  of  the  Prophets, 
155. 

Polydemonism,  16. 

Polytheism,  Solomon's,  82. 

Polytheism  condemned,  201. 

Power  of  Yahweh,  151. 

Prediction  and  Prophecy,  138. 

Priestcode,  216. 

Priestly  Narrative,  The,  228. 

Priests,  76,  126. 

Priests,  Consecration  of,  219. 

Priests,  Prerogatives  of,  226. 

Priests,  Purity  of,  215. 

Prince  of  the  restored  Common- 
wealth, 209. 

Prophets,  10,  79,  123. 

Prophets  and  Priests,  Corrupt,  169. 

Prostitutes,  Sacred,  72. 

Psalms,  The,  315. 

Psalms  of  Solomon,  348. 

Ptah-hotep,  278. 

Punishment  of  Judah,  176. 

Race  Pride,  279. 
Rechabites,  The,  81. 
Recompense,  Temporal,  283,  322. 
Redeemer,  Yahweh  as,  254. 
Religion,  260. 
Remnant,  The,  177. 
Resurrection,  The,  306. 
Resurrection  and  the  Sadducees, 

344. 

Retribution,  Theory  of,  267,  273. 
Revelation,  54. 

Revelation  by  the  Spirit,  129. 
Righteous,  Sufferings  of  the,  267. 
Righteous  and  Wicked,  307. 
Ritual,  Need  of,  181. 
Ruth,  The  Book  of,  263. 

Sabbath,  The,  224. 

Sabbath,  The  Babylonian,  230. 

Sabbath,  Postexilic  Emphasis  of 

the,  231. 

Sabbath  at  Creation,  The,  229. 
Sacredness,  35. 
Sacrifice,  40,  76. 
Sacrifice,  Human,  70. 
Sacrifices,  Deuteronomic  View  of, 

193. 
Sacrificial  Ritual,  219. 


INDEXES 


369 


Sadducees,  The,  344. 

Saga,  The,  95. 

Sanctity,  205,  212. 

Sanctity  of  Jerusalem,  298. 

Sanctity  of  Material  Objects,  218. 

Sanctuaries,  106. 

Sanctuaries,  Canaanite,  66. 

Satan  and  Job,  266. 

Scapegoat,  The,  223. 

Scepticism,  244. 

Scribe,  Praise  of  the,  288. 

Scythians,  The,  163,  165. 

Seer,  The,  78,  123. 

Separation,  Jewish,  332. 

Serpent,  The  brazen,  160. 

Servant  of  Yahweh,  The,  256. 

Seven  World-periods,  308. 

Seventy  Years,  Jeremiah's,  303. 

Seventy  Year-weeks,  Daniel's,  303. 

Sexual  Sins,  214. 

Shaddai,  15. 

Shema,  The,  183. 

Sheol,  114,  270,  306. 

Sheol,  No  Return  from,  272. 

Sibylline  Books,  339. 

Simon  Maccabeus,  344. 

Sin,  Priestly  Idea  of,  220. 

Sin  and  its  Punishment,  102. 

Sin  as  Defilement,  202. 

Sinful  Habit,  174. 

Sin-offerings,  210,  220. 

Sins,  Unwitting,  210,  221. 

Slaves  of  the  Temple,  78. 

Social  Demands  of  Deuteronomy, 

188. 

Social  Justice,  135,  153. 
Social  Reform,  138. 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  107. 
Solomon,  Psalms  of,  348. 
Son  of  Man,  The,  302,  312. 
Sons  of  God,  109. 
Sorcery,  120. 

Spirit  of  Yahweh,  The,  79,  128. 
Spirits  of  the  Dead,  28. 
Stones,  Sacred,  20,  65. 
Syncretism,  71,  85. 

Tabernacle,  The,  216. 
Taboo  of  Fruits,  215. 


Tammuz,  201. 

Temple,  Importance  of  the,  149. 

Temple  of  Ezekiel,  207. 

Temple  slaves,  78. 

Teraphim,  The,  121. 

Testament  of  Jacob,  92. 

Theocratic  Ideal,  The,  227. 

Tithe,  The,  193. 

Tora,  The,  192. 

Trees,  Sacred,  17. 

Trust  in  Yahweh,  157,  281,  368. 

Unity  of  God,  184. 
Unity  of  the  Sanctuary,  184. 
Unwitting  Sins,  323. 
Urim  and  Thummim,  122. 

Vicarious  Suffering,  258. 
Vindication  of  Yahweh,  200. 
Vineyard,  The  new,  215. 
Vineyard,  Parable  of  the,  154. 
Visions,  127. 

Wicked  and  Righteous,  323. 
Wisdom,  The  Book  of,  292. 
Wisdom,  Panegyric  of,  275. 
Wisdom  Defined,  281. 
Wisdom  is  the  Law,  282. 
Wisdom  Literature,  277. 
Wisdom  of  Israel,  299. 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  341. 
Wisdom  Personified,  281. 
Worship  of  the  Dead,  28. 

Yahweh,  15,  49. 
Yahweh,  Name  of,  56. 
Yahweh  all-powerful,  317. 
Yahweh  and  Ethics,  99. 
Yahweh  the  Creator,  252. 
Yahweh's  Fidelity,  99. 
Yahweh's  Justice,  143,  228. 
Yahweh's  Kindness,  318. 
Yahweh's  Oneness,  184,  250. 
Yahwist,  The,  103. 

Zadokite  Priests,  208. 
Zephaniah,  163. 
Zerubbabel,  243. 


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